


Backdraft

by Zangofel



Series: Damn Stubborn Dreamer [6]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition, dragon - Fandom
Genre: Cole has a kitten, Exhaustion, F/M, Frustration, Making Up, Slow Pace, and making out, proper fight, which doesn't actually matter much
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-01
Updated: 2016-11-02
Packaged: 2018-05-17 17:13:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 21,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5879062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zangofel/pseuds/Zangofel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Backdraft, n. An explosive surge in a fire produced by the sudden mixing of air with other combustible gases.</p><p>Tamsin is the fire, and Cullen is her oxygen. She may use him all up before this is over.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This comes after everything else I've posted in this series, but its actual timing is nebulous. All I'm sure of is that it's well after the Winter Palace.

Looking back, Cullen realized he probably should have seen it coming.

He was used to being able to step out onto the battlements and locate her almost immediately, speaking with a soldier, eating with Elle and the surgeon’s aides, sparring with Bull or Cassandra or going to visit Cole. He knew when she was going to visit the spirit because it took him a bit to spot her. His eyes always slid over her at first, despite how he was drawn to her like a ship to a beacon; she would be hugging a wall, keeping out of others’ ways, as she made her way into the tavern, shoulders cloaked in shadow and hands cupped around something.

                  He always wondered what she held, but never asked. One night he was in the tavern, talking with Rylen about lieutenants to promote and squad dynamics, when his second-in-command looked up over Cullen’s shoulder and went quiet.

Cullen turned to see Cole standing behind him. “Cole?” he asked, curious and trying to hide how disconcerting he found the young man. “How can I help you?”

                  “One biscuit,” Cole said, voice dreamy. “three feathers, two black and one grey. A broken horseshoe. One sharpstone. Four flowers, three teacakes, one note between deceased lovers, two stones from dwarven ruins, five shards of different ores, and one kitten.”

                  He deposited something warm and fuzzy in Cullen’s lap. Cullen looked down. A tiny kitten, not more than twelve weeks old, with light grey fur and a tan blotch on its head, blinked up at him. It stepped up, resting its forepaws in a fold in his tunic, and opened its mouth wide in a silent mew.

                  Cullen chuckled and slipped a finger under the kitten’s chin, scratching. The creature was so _small;_ every twitch of his finger made its head bob up and down. “What—?” he asked Cole, looking up.

                  “You were wondering what Tamsin brought me, when you see her shadow walking. It’s never something bad. Don’t be suspicious. She brings me feeling things, and she knows that I don’t like it when people look straight at me, but people never stop looking at her, so she shadow walks.”

                  “Ah. How…” Cullen trailed off. It was better not to ask how Cole knew what he was thinking.

                  The kitten mewed again, silently, and raised a sharp-tipped paw to grab at Cullen’s finger. Cole leaned in and scooped it up. He cradled the creature in both hands, elbows tucked into his sides, arms held stiff in the way of children who had been told over and over again to ‘be careful’.

                  “Thank you for sharing, Cole,” Cullen said quietly.

                  “You can visit, if you want,” Cole said, looking at him from under his hat with those wide eyes of his. “Tamsin says the kitten needs to socialize.”

                  To his surprise, Cullen realized that he would like that very much. He didn’t have to say that; Cole blinked at him, and then was gone. Cullen had a vague impression of seeing the boy walk up the stairs, but it was faint, like a faded memory.

                  “Kitten?” Rylen asked, when Cullen turned around. Cullen nodded, reached for his jack. “I didn’t know the barn cat had a litter.”

                  “I didn’t, either,” Cullen replied, but he didn’t think that was where the kit had come from. He could easily imagine Tamsin finding the kitten out in Crestwood or on the Storm Coast and carrying the critter all the way back, tucked into a scarf round her shoulders, buying goats milk from farmers along the path to feed it, and curling around it at night to keep it warm. He made a note to ask her if that was what had happened.

                  He never got around to it, and by the time he remembered, things had changed. Tamsin didn’t stroll the grounds, laughing and talking, popping in and out of conversations. She strode from place to place, always with a report in her hands or someone at her side; Threnn, usually, sometimes Maeve, sometimes Harritt. She always had somewhere to be. She used to slip away from her obligations, beg a moment with Cullen alone. She would be the one to tell him when a meeting had been called, and they’d stroll to the council chamber together, stealing kisses in shadowed corners. Now, a messenger came for him, and when she needed his report on the state of the army, she’d ask him to walk with her, talk as she checked with merchants in the square or stood on the battlements overlooking the keep, a list of requisitions in her hand. He knew he had her attention—he had never met someone as adept at multitasking as Tamsin was—but it was difficult anyway. He still expected her to slip into his office, a coy smile on her face, and ask if he could get away for a moment or three. She hadn’t done that in weeks. She was never cold with him—her tone was businesslike and firm, but warm—and the few times he’d gotten distracted in a report by the sway of her walk or her lips, she’d offered him a smile and leaned up for a quick kiss. But there were no escapes from duty, no invitations to join her for dinner or for the night.

                  She took to smithing more. Cullen had the distinct impression she was preparing for a battle. She was, of course, they all were, but there was something more intent about it, now. He would see the frown on her face as she scrutinized the war table, trying to figure out how many soldiers they could spare to gather ore and other supplies. Whenever the soldiers returned, bringing with them iron or obsidian or stormheart, she always looked like a tiny weight had been lifted off her shoulders. “Bring back as much as you can,” Cullen told his soldiers, “as quickly as you can. I trust you to find the balance.” And they did, returning every few days with new prizes. After the sixth or seventh trip like this, Tamsin beamed, thanked the soldiers profusely, and disappeared into the smithy under the keep. Cullen didn’t see her for two days. A messenger eventually returned, bearing missives of a diplomatic nature that needed to be tended to immediately, and they sent someone to get Tamsin. The soldier returned alone, embarrassed.

                  “She refused, sir,” he said to Cullen. “Wouldn’t leave. Said that what she’s working on can’t be left alone.”

                  “Thank you, soldier,” Cullen said, dismissing him, and with a glance to Leliana and Josephine, went to get her himself.

                  The undercroft reeked of burning leather and hot metal. Even Cullen, seasoned as he was, flinched at the smell. It smelled like… well, it smelled like the Fereldan Circle had. He swallowed down the surge of memories—they weren’t bad, as the day was bright and his craving was quiet enough today—and strode forward, seeking out Tamsin.

                  There she was, a blur of white and tan in the midst of black soot and glowing orange metal. As he watched, she wiped the back of a thickly-gloved hand across her brow, leaving a streak of ash behind, and pulled a massive blade out of the forge. She set it on an anvil, picked up a hammer Harritt was absent-mindedly holding out for her, and struck.

                  The metal rang like an angry song.

                  “Tamsin,” Cullen bellowed, pitching his voice to be heard over the roar of forge and waterfall. He had to call again before Tamsin looked up, lavender eyes wide in her pale face.

                  “Cullen?” she asked, then looked down at the metal, cooling to yellow on the anvil before her. “Shit.” She pushed it back into the forge, then turned to him. “What are you doing here?”

                  “We need you in the council,” he said, stepping forward. The heat was _intense_ , here; he was already sweating under his armor. Tamsin frowned up at him. She was wearing her brown-and-gold—disposable clothing, now—and it was unbuttoned to well below her collarbone. The fabric was dark with sweat and her hair was plastered to her face, the white strands stained grey.

                  “I can’t,” she said, gesturing to the forge. “I can’t leave this, or it’ll make all wrong.”

                  “We need you, Tamsin,” he said, a little quieter now. He was frowning, he could feel it. Tamsin looked up at him sharply.

                  “I am aware of that,” she said, barely keeping from snapping. “But I cannot leave this. I will come when I can.”

                  “The messenger needs to go back today.”

                  She made a frustrated noise and pulled the blade back out of the forge.

                  “Fine,” she said, setting it on the anvil and raising her hammer. “Tell me about it here, then.”

                  Cullen ground his teeth. Being in here with his armor was _miserable,_ but he would never get Josephine in here to explain the situation. Damn her and her stubbornness. He knew forging was a delicate issue—you couldn’t just shove a blade into the furnace and forget about it, and some metals could only be heated and worked in one go—but did she have to do this _now?_ By herself? Couldn’t she turn it over to Harritt or Dagna?

                  Apparently not, judging by the artificer’s absence and how Harritt was working on a project of his own.

                  _Fine,_ he thought. “Lady Underhill wrote us to say that she takes issue with the Inquisition’s soldiers on her land, using up her resources and trampling the grass. Apparently they stomped through her garden.”

                  “Through her garden?” Tamsin frowned. “Why were they so close to her manor?”

                  “They weren’t. She evidently cultivates parts of the woods at random, so ‘through her garden’ means through a particularly nice bit of wildflowers.”

                  “Charming.” Tamsin scowled. “Did she make a request?”

                  “No, just complained profusely.”

                  “So she just wants us to acknowledge that we’re putting her out.” She turned the blade and brought the hammer down again. “Ask Josephine to send an apology that makes a point of acknowledging her great sacrifice and thanking her for her contributions to this cause by allowing us to utilize her resources. Tell her she’ll be compensated when this is all over, and send a gift of seeds or sprouted flowers, whichever will make the woman happy. Have Josephine send it with another contingent of soldiers. They can stay for a few weeks and then come back, we just need to make it clear that we’re _not leaving_.” These last two words were punctuated with a hard strike.

                  “Careful,” called Harritt from behind them, “that’s temperamental stuff.”

                  “I know,” she sighed, and struck again, gentler this time.

                  “Yes, Inquisitor,” Cullen said, tone clipped, turned on his heel, and walked away.

                  He expected her to call out to him. She didn’t like it when he was angry. But the strike of hammer against metal continued, and so he left the undercroft fuming.

                  Josephine and Leliana were disappointed, but not surprised, by what had happened.

                  “Give her time,” Josephine sighed. “Perhaps when this project is done she will emerge.”

                  “Maybe,” Cullen sighed, running a hand through sweaty hair.

                  “Go take a bath, Cullen,” Leliana said gently. “You are a mess.”

                  He grimaced. He knew he was. “I should have made one of you go instead.”

                  “But you didn’t,” Josephine said, laying a delicate hand on his arm, “and your sacrifice in the name of good taste and fine fabric is much appreciated.”

                  He grimaced and rolled his eyes, but allowed a bit of a smile to peek out as Leliana and Josephine laughed and shooed him away.


	2. Chapter 2

 

                  It took Tamsin another day and a half to emerge from the undercroft, and when she did, she was a mess. He heard one of the servants complaining that it had taken three baths to get the Inquisitor clean. When she called a war council that afternoon, there was no mention of the near-week spent forging weapons, or the inconvenience to them. She heard their reports, thanked Josephine for sending the gift for Lady Underhill, decided where they were sending their resources next. When she stretched over the table to point to a marker, her sleeve rode up her arm, and Cullen saw there an alarming number of red marks: burns.

                  She didn’t seem to notice them, though the next day her arm was bandaged, the white linen dampened by the salve underneath it. “Tamsin,” Cullen said when she stopped by his office, and his voice was low and concerned. She opened her mouth to say something, and then his tone registered.

                  “Yes?” she asked.

                  “Are you alright?”

                  “They’re just burns, Cullen,” she said, a small, fond smile on her lips. “I’ve had worse.”

                  “That’s not what I meant.”

                  “What did you mean, then?”

                  Cullen came around the corner of his desk. Tamsin stood up straight and crossed her arms as he approached. “You’ve been… well, I worry that you’re working too hard.”

                  “Too hard?” This came with a raised eyebrow. “Cullen, I don’t work half as hard as any foot soldier. If anything, I’m not getting enough done.”

                  “No,” Cullen said firmly, “I would never push my soldiers as hard as you have been pushing yourself. Men and women need time to relax, to… to drink with friends.”

                  “Are you saying I should go drinking?”

                  “No,” he said hastily, “I mean, not unless you want to… I mean that you need to always remember the good things in life.” The words came out sappy and trite, much to his chagrin.

                  Tamsin’s face softened. “I do, Cullen,” she said, stepping forward and placing her hand on his cheek. Cullen leaned his face into the touch. It had been _too long_ since she had touched him this way: tenderly. “I remember. It’s why I work so hard. I need to protect it.”

                  Cullen lifted his head, frowned at her. “No, that’s not what I…”

                  “I’ll be fine,” Tamsin interrupted, patted his cheek, and left his office. She’d forgotten to ask him whatever it was that brought her to his study in the first place, but she didn’t return.

                  The next day, Tamsin, Vivienne, Dorian, and Solas saddled up for a quick journey to a village nestled at the base of the mountains. There were some rumors of a fade Rift, and more substantive talk of a fight between two potential mayors. A little kind assistance from the Inquisition would help keep things stable in the area and establish them as an omnipresent power. Three mages and a rogue meant a strike force: in, out, done. Indeed, they rode out Tuesday morning and came back Thursday. Cullen walked out to the wall when he heard the trumpet call announcing their arrival. The warriors looked content; things had gone well, then. He watched Vivienne dismount, always an immaculate storm of silk, and then glanced to Tamsin.            

                  Solas was standing by her hart. He frowned despite himself, felt a grumbling burn of possessiveness—or was it jealousy?—deep inside him. Then he realized that Dorian was standing there, too, and Master Dennet was holding Shemvir’s reins. His heart leapt into his throat. Tamsin, was she…? —there she was. Her face was bright and she laughed at something a soldier said as she slid out of the saddle. Dorian and Solas caught her. They each ducked under one of her arms and placed a supporting hand on her back. Tamsin was limping, and the left leg of her pants was dark with blood, but she seemed in high spirits, saying something that made Solas smile and Dorian laugh outright. Evidently her wound looked worse than it was.

                  Cullen watched them get her to the infirmary, and then returned to his study. He kept an eye on the surgery, though, and when the door opened and Tamsin reemerged, walking straight and tall, he felt much better.

                  Cullen looked down at the missives that had been delivered to him. Nothing much—scouting reports from Harding, troop movements and a list of casualties from Rylen, retrieved from individual sergeants’ reports and compiled for him. The grain season in the Hinterlands was drawing to a close; they’d need to find another source of basic foodstuffs. Preferably one that let the Inquisition move into new territory and become a peacekeeping force. They had famers in their ranks, and those soldiers had never thrived as much as when they were stationed to support a village or town, uniform sleeves rolled up and hands in the dirt. He would need to speak with Josephine about that.

                  Cullen flipped through the stack of paper, and then pulled out a small envelope. It was addressed to the Inquisitor, but he knew that script.

                  Lady Underhill.

                  Sighing, Cullen opened the letter and scanned its contents. It was surprisingly civil; the woman proclaimed her love for the Inquisition, likely in response to the compliments paid her, mused about ways her land could be more bountiful with a little help. Excellent, that would help solve his other problem. At the very end, a few sentences, the script less slanted, as if Lady Underhill had thought very carefully about each word. _Dearest Inquisitor,_ she wrote, _your gift was kind, and I appreciate the gesture. Unfortunately, I cannot accept these seedlings. Since the death of our daughter three years ago, we have honored her wishes by using only the wildflowers and plants found in our lands. She loved the untamed fields. As such, I am returning them to you, that you may give them to your gardeners and they may find a home there._

Cullen grimaced. How had they overlooked such a basic fact of this woman’s life? It wasn't a large slight, and the woman didn’t seem upset, but Tamsin would want to see this. A personal apology from her probably wouldn’t go amiss.

                  Cullen tucked the letter back into the envelope and crossed the bridge separating his tower from the keep. As he passed through the rotunda, Solas called out to him: “Oh, Commander.”

                  “Yes?” Cullen slowed, a bit confused. He and the apostate didn’t speak often. Solas seemed plenty aware of Cullen’s… issues with mages.

                  “I wanted to assure you that our Inquisitor is quite well. It was a flesh wound, nothing a little time in the surgery and some salve wouldn’t fix.” Solas paused, eyes narrowing slightly at him in that unreadable way he had, and added, “I would be concerned if I were in your shoes. I assumed the information would not be unwelcome.”

                  “No, not at all. Thank you, Solas.” Cullen nodded to the elf, who returned the gesture, and continued on.

                  He had to ask around to find Tamsin, as she wasn’t in the council chamber, with Josephine, in the rotunda, the undercroft, the garden, the chapel… Eventually someone mentioned that they had seen her heading up the stairs to her quarters. That was odd, at this hour of the day. Cullen climbed the steps to her door, knocking once and then testing the handle. It was unlocked, so he entered, calling out, “Inquisitor?” as he moved up the stairs.

                  “Cullen.” Tamsin looked up from her desk at his approach, surprise on her face. “What can I do for you?”

                  Her desk was covered with papers, some of them weapon schematics, some requisition reports, a few anatomical studies done on the red lyrium templars. Cullen could see crass doodles scribbled in the corners of a few of these. Evidently Sera had gotten a hold of them.

                  “I’m glad to see your leg isn’t bothering you,” he said, nodding toward the wound. She had changed, of course, and the black leggings bunched over the thick bandage, but she seemed fine. Why did she keep getting hurt on her thigh? Hadn’t she learned to block that weak spot? 

                  “Thank you.” She reached down, rubbed the edge of the bandage absentmindedly. “Since you’re here, I’d like you to take a look at this requisition requests, see what you think.”

                  “Of course.” Cullen handed out the envelope. “This arrived for you.”

                  “Opened?” she asked, raising an eyebrow at him.

                  “No,” he admitted, a little embarrassed. “I was afraid it was vitriolic. I wanted to see if it needed to be brought to your attention sooner or later.”

                  “And is it vitriolic?”

                  “Not in the least.”

                  She smiled and took the envelope for him, gesturing to her desk and stepping a few paces away. Cullen walked over and looked down at the spread of papers. Here were her weapon schematics, ores and crafting materials scribbled on a piece of parchment beside them. Here was a map of Ferelden detailing the resources available. More weapon making? Oh well. Cullen ran a finger down the list. He could send a small band of soldiers to get stormheart in Crestwood, and drakestone… they had that in the Hinterlands, didn’t they? There was obsidian there, too, but the only place worth scouring was currently home to a mother dragon and her brood of nigh fifteen dragonlings, so that wasn’t an—

                  “ _Shit_ ,” Tamsin hissed. Cullen turned, surprised. She was staring down at the note, knuckles white as she gripped it in one hand. Her other hand was balled into a fist at her side, and the anchor was sparking. “Of all the Blighted, damned…”

                  “Tamsin?” Cullen stepped forward. The note had been civil, even friendly! What had her so upset?

                  Tamsin crumpled the note in her fist. The rich parchment made even that sound unfairly luxurious. “How could I…”

                  “Tamsin.” Cullen took her shoulder, tried to pull her to face him. She wouldn’t move. “What is it?”

                  “I couldn’t even send a simple _gift_ ,” she hissed, and her tone was dripping with poison. Cullen flinched a little, even as his heart twisted at the fact that that tone was directed towards Tamsin herself. “One damned simple thing—“

                  “ _Tamsin!”_ Cullen grabbed her wrists and forced her to face him. The note dropped from her fist. “It was a simple mistake, Tamsin. Why are you so—“ He cut off when Tamsin _yanked_ her hands free and strode away, fury in every tightly-controlled line of her body. She didn’t really have anywhere to go, though, so she only walked to the door to her balcony and stood there, one fist thumping gently against the metal frame.

                  Damn it. Blight it. Blight her! Cullen bit down on his own furious retort. If she was like this… well, there was nothing he could do, and he would not sit through a tantrum. He picked up the note, straightening it, and tucked it back into the envelope. He would take it to Josephine and ask her to consult with Leliana before sending a reply, he decided, moving towards the stairs.

                  “Don’t go.” Tamsin’s voice. He half expected her words to be a command, sharp and unquestionable, but they were… they sounded _broken_. He turned. The fury had drained out of every inch of her body, and she sagged against the door frame, face pressed against her arm. “Please,” she added in a near whisper. “Please don’t go.”

                  Cullen placed the note back on her desk and took a few steps towards her. “Tamsin,” he said very quietly, “What is going on?”

                  She raised her head towards him then, and her expression was pure misery. His heart twisted. He was still angry—she had been distant, cold and sharp for weeks, and this was just one more thing—but he loved her, and seeing her in pain hurt him. Tamsin opened her mouth to answer him, closed it, opened it again, and then burst into tears.

                  The violence of her sobs nearly drove her to her knees. Cullen stepped in and caught her, more as a reflex than anything else. She clung to him, fingers digging under the plate of his pauldron and twisting in the fabric of his cloak. Her chest shook with every sob.

                  “Tamsin,” he asked, mouth near her ear, “Do you want to sit down?”

                  She nodded, head rubbing against the fabric covering his breastplate. That couldn’t be comfortable. Cullen took a step back and she let him guide her towards her bed. She sat down, though it looked like more of a fall, placed her elbows on her knees and her head in her hands, and cried.

                  Cullen sat down next to her. Every instinct he had wanted to pull her into his arms and hold her close, but she was guarded—shoulders up to her ears, face hidden in her hands—so he placed a gentle hand on her back and waited.

                  Her sobs grew harsh, almost wailing, then quieted to sniffles and occasional tears. Cullen reached to hand her a handkerchief, but she pulled one from a pocket.

                  “You taught me well,” she said, voice rough, and wiped her face and blew her nose. Cullen chuckled softly.

                  “Tamsin,” he said, when her tears had gone and she was simply staring at the floor. “What’s going on?”

                  “Everything, Cullen,” she whispered, and laughed humorlessly. The sound hurt.

                  “What do you mean?”

                  Here she sat up, though she looked at the wall opposite instead of at him. “Everything is happening, and I need to get it all done. We’re better than we’ve ever been, but we’re not good enough. We don’t have enough influence, enough friends, enough power. These things have to happen, and I am the only one who can do them, and I am _so blighted tired_.”

                  “Oh, Tamsin.” Cullen did reach for her, now, and she let him pull her in. He kissed the top of her head. “You don’t have to do everything.”

                  “But I do.” She pulled back and looked up at him. “I have to do a thing, or the thing doesn’t get done. We need more ore, more herbs, more quarries and logging stands, because we need better weapons, better potions, better walls and towers. Nobles need my attention, and I can barely remember who’s who. And it’s not just because of the masks. They’re so damned similar, but the little differences mean something, so I can’t forget them. Our soldiers need to see me, they need to see us getting ready for the battle to come, because soldiers take courage from their leaders, and you’re the commander, but I’m me, I know they all see me, and I… I’m not ready for this, Cullen. I’m not ready. There’s so much to do and I can’t do any of it.”

                  Cullen looked at her sadly. She refused to meet his eyes. Color sat high on her cheeks, red from crying and from… was that shame?

                  “Tamsin, look at me.” She glanced up towards his face, and then stopped with her eyes somewhere about his collarbone. Cullen pulled off his gloves, dropping them on the floor by the base of her bed, and took her chin in one hand, forcing her to look up.

                  She complied, and when she met his eyes, she looked as though she was about to start crying again.

                  “You are one woman,” Cullen said firmly. “Only one woman. You are the strongest, kindest, most driven, most graceful woman I have ever met, and you are only _one person_. I know you want to make weapons. I know you want to take care of the nobles and make our soldiers feel appreciated. Those are important things, Tamsin, but you have advisors and friends for a reason. You must trust them. Trust us. You can’t do it all.”

                  “But…” Tamsin’s eyes filled again.

                  “No buts.” Cullen kissed her forehead, and then stood. “Stay here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The trouble with writing a story that is largely one continuous scene is that it gets so difficult to find good places to break between chapters. Oh well.


	3. Chapter 3

She watched him walk away, expression bemused. Cullen poured her a cup of water, which she accepted, and then the commander left the room. He caught the attention of the soldier standing on the dais by the throne, pleased when the man immediately snapped to attention and saluted him sharply. 

"Yes, ser?" 

“The Inquisitor is in dire need of rest, and is not to be disturbed under _any_ circumstances,” Cullen said firmly. “If Leliana herself comes to you and says it is urgent, then, and _only_ then, may you open the door.”

“Yes, Commander.” The soldier nodded solemnly. Cullen turned to go. “Commander?” He turned back, eyebrows raised. “Thank you for taking care of her, ser," the soldier said quietly, and the simple, honest gratitude in his voice said as much as Tamsin’s tears had about just how hard the Inquisitor had been pushing herself—and how much her people had noticed. “She needs it, and we need her. We want her to be well. Tell her that, please… if you think she’d like to hear it.”

Cullen grasped the soldier’s forearm, firm and warm. “I will,” he said quietly, and then returned to Tamsin’s chambers, locking the upper door behind him. 

She was exactly where he had left her, sitting on the edge of her bed, cup of water curled between her hands. Her head was bowed and her shoulders were slumped. When Cullen came around to her side of the bed, she glanced up, but there was no curiosity in her eyes.

Cullen reached up and unbuckled the fur ruff on his armor. He laid it carefully across the back of a chair, and then undid the ties of his breastplate. Tamsin tilted her head slightly. Her expression was still mostly impassive, but she was paying attention to him. That was something. 

Piece by piece, Cullen stripped off his armor, taking care to place each part on the chair or the floor with loving precision. His cape he folded and draped beside the ruff. Sword belt he laid beside the bed, more out of force of habit than anything else. Tamsin watched him, her blank expression gaining a faint hint of confusion. 

Finally, Cullen was down to just his linen breeches and undershirt. He ran a hand through his hair, letting out a soft sigh—being free of that armor, as right as it felt to wear it, was always a welcome feeling—and then turned to Tamsin. 

“Stand up.” 

She did so, slowly, and her leg wobbled a little in the process. Cullen took her cup of water, placing it back on the table, then carefully undid each of her tunic’s buttons. She watched his hands, puzzled but patient.

Cullen drew the tunic off her shoulders and draped it carefully over the footboard. “Sit down,” he said. Tamsin sat. Cullen knelt in front of her and took off her boots, lining them up beside her bed. Next went her stockings, then her leggings. This took a bit more work, especially with her wounded leg. Finally, though, she was sitting on the bed in nothing but her smallclothes, gazing up at him.

Cullen pulled her to her feet, then drew back a corner of her covers. “Lay down,” he said.

“But, my repor—“

“No, Tamsin.” Cullen placed a hand on her shoulder. “Not here, not now. Lay down.” 

Tamsin blinked up at him. Cullen leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead, and he felt her exhale when his lips touched her skin. Some part of her tension left her with that breath, and when he pushed, ever so gently, she moved. Cullen guided her into bed, tucking the blanket around her, then turned and walked to the balcony. Behind him, Tamsin made a small, unhappy noise.

“I’m coming back,” he said over his shoulder. He opened the balcony doors, letting in a cool breeze that would keep the room from overheating, and then returned to the bed. Tamsin pushed back the covers he had drawn up around her shoulders. Cullen pulled off his shirt, and she made another small noise—this one soft and tired, but very appreciative—and he chuckled quietly as he slipped into bed beside her. He sat up, leaning back against the headboard, and Tamsin immediately scooted closer and put her head in his lap. Cullen smiled and obediently began to run his fingers through her hair.

“It’s barely midday,” she muttered against his thigh.

“It’s late afternoon,” Cullen corrected. “And you are not to worry about the time. Commander’s orders.”

“You’re not _my_ commander,” she retorted, but he could feel her smile against his leg. That was the Tamsin he knew: Contrary, but playful.

“I am your lover, Tamsin Lavellan,” he said firmly, “and the commander of your army. I have a say. And I say you should stop thinking about what time it is.”

Tamsin shifted to look up at him. “I like it when you say that,” she said softly.

“Say what?”

“‘Lover’.” 

Cullen smiled at her and raised one of her hands, brushing his lips over the back of it. Tamsin beamed up at him, then turned onto her side again, and he resumed running his fingers through his hair.

They sat in silence for some time. Cullen rested his free hand in the dip of her waist, tracing idle patterns on her skin as he played with her hair. Slowly, Tamsin relaxed, the tight lines of her body softening, her head becoming heavier on his leg as she stopped holding her neck so stiffly. She didn’t speak, and so neither did he; Instead, Cullen watched the sky outside grow a warm gold as the sun wandered down towards the horizon. This was the first time he had seen Tamsin still for more than a few moments in almost three months, and he wasn’t about to ruin it. 

Tamsin mumbled something in a sleepy voice.

“Hmm?” Cullen asked, inclining his head toward her. She lifted her head so she wasn’t speaking into his leg. 

“I feel gross.”

“Why?” He frowned. 

“I can’t remember the last time I had a real bath. It's so... frivolous, I guess. Quick washes and cold rivers are good enough for most everyone. It's just... I miss..." She huffed out in exasperation, words failing her.

“The luxury?” Cullen suggested, a smile on his face, and Tamsin bit her lip to hide her own smile. 

“Yeah.” 

“Then you should call for a bath. This is your evening.”

“My evening?”

“The soldiers below are on orders not to let anyone through unless I or Leliana vouch for them, and you are not leaving this room.”

“ _I’m_ not leaving?” Tamsin rolled over to look up at him, then. “Is that a command?”

“Yes,” he said firmly, and smoothed a piece of hair out of her face. 

“What if I really want to?”

“There’s nothing you need for tonight that either isn’t in this room or can’t be brought to you. You’re staying.”

“And if I refuse?” An impish smile began to grow on her face, and Cullen knew that whatever came out of her mouth next would test him. “Would you detain me, commander? Make me your prisoner and tie me up?”

He was right. Cullen leaned his head back, thumping it gently against the headboard. “Tamsin…” he sighed.

“What?” she asked, voice innocent. “I just wanted to know.”

“If you want a bath, we'll get you one."

“You’re avoiding the question.”

“I am avoiding the question.” Cullen lifted her head off his leg so he could slip out of bed. Tamsin grumbled in protest. “I’ll bring a mage.”

He drew on his shirt, trousers and tunic—their relationship wasn’t secret, but it wouldn’t do for the soldiers to see him half-dressed—threw his cloak over his shoulders, and headed downstairs. 

To his pleasure, the soldiers had pulled another to stand guard right beside the door leading up from the keep’s main floor. The soldier turned when he opened the door, and he saw that it was a young woman, one of Harding’s scouts on leave at Skyhold for a few weeks. He’d seen Tamsin and this one—Kit, if he remembered correctly—talking; all the better, then, that it was a soldier who was personally fond of the Inquisitor.

Kit saluted him sharply, ignoring his state of relative undress. “Commander?” she asked. 

“Please send a runner to ask the steward to send up a household mage, and the cook to send up a meal. Beyond that, your orders stand. The Inquisitor is in dire need of rest undisturbed by official matters. I trust you understand.”

“I do, sir.” She nodded, bowing slightly at the waist. “Should I have the cook send up a meal for one, or for two?”

Bless her intelligence, and the utter lack of suggestion on her face. 

“Two, please, Kit. Thank you.”

“Of course, sir.” She saluted him, smiling. “Thank you, sir.”

Cullen paused, hand on the doorknob. “For?”

“Taking care of her.” Kit gestured up the stairs. “We’ve all seen that she’s running herself ragged. All of us that pay attention, anyhow. She’s our Inquisitor and our leader, but she… well, we know she needs it. Thank you.”

Cullen nodded—what did he say to that? ‘You’re welcome’?—and closed the door.

One soldier saying something was revealing, but _two?_ What had Cullen missed? None of the four soldiers by the dais had so much as glanced at him suggestively. Something had happened, something that he didn’t know about, to prompt this degree of solemnity in his men. 

He mused on it as he returned up the stairs. Tamsin was sprawled out on the bed where he had left her, staring up at the ceiling. He half expected her to have stripped down or something equally enticing—and frustrating—but she was only playing with a lock of her hair, plaiting it into a tiny braid. 

He sat down on the bed beside her. 

“You might want to put a robe on, before the mage and your dinner arrives.”

“Dinner?” she glanced at him. 

“I had them send for a meal for you. I meant it when I said you weren’t leaving.”

“And you?” She frowned, clearly concerned that he would leave her. Cullen smiled. 

“They’re bringing enough for two,” he said. 

“Good.” Tamsin went back to staring at the ceiling. Cullen stood and went to retrieve a robe from her wardrobe. That trip to Val Royeaux all those months ago had involved more clothing than Tamsin had realized, and Josephine, the clever woman, commissioned a new outfit every few weeks, so that what had once only held a few ratty linen shirts, armor, and the now-infamous brown-and-gold outfit was now wonderfully rich with a variety of clothing, including two cloaks, a few dresses, and a few pale blue boxes on the top shelf. When those boxes had arrived, the advisors had all been in Josephine’s office, going over the army and connections of an ambivalent duke. The packages had been addressed to Josephine, and she had seemed a little confused as she took them from the courier. “Pardon me,” she’d said to Leliana and Cullen, stepping aside and lifting the lid partway off one of the boxes. Her face had immediately lit up, and she had laughed. 

“What?” Leliana had asked, walking over.

“From Madame Vetement,” Josephine had said, turning so Leliana could see into the box. The Nightingale had blinked, and then laughed as well.

“What?” Cullen had asked, taking a step toward them.

“Oh, no, Cullen.” Leliana had intercepted him with a hand on his chest, while Josephine closed the box and gestured for one of her assistants to take them away. “Those are not for you.”

“And they’re for both of you?” he had asked, more irritated by Leliana’s tone than not seeing the box’s contents. 

“No, Cullen,” Josephine had said, her voice gentle as she walked back to the desk. “They are for our Inquisitor, and she will show you when she pleases.” There had been no mockery in her tone, though both she and Leliana were grinning. 

Cullen had a fairly good idea what was in the boxes, but Tamsin had yet to show him. He glanced at them as he reached into her armoire. He was curious, but the boxes had sat untouched for a few weeks now, and he was starting to wonder if his suspicions about their contents were wrong. 

He pulled Tamsin’s dressing gown from her armoire and brought it over to her. She immediately rose from the bed, slipping it on and pulling it tight around her; she loved that thing. 

The mage and maid arrived shortly thereafter, and within minutes Tamsin had a steaming bath by her fire and a large tray of food on her desk—which Cullen had quietly cleaned off while she was making her bed, not wanting her to see the papers and slip back into her frenzy of action. They departed with a bow and a respectful “Inquisitor” and not a hint of innuendo. Again with that solemnity. What was Cullen missing?

Tamsin pulled a small blue bottle from the chest at the foot of her bed and sprinkled a few drops into the bath. The room immediately filled with the blissful scent of citrus and vanilla. 

“You going to join me?” she asked, glancing over her shoulder at Cullen.

“I wasn’t planning on it,” he said with a shrug.

“So you were going to stand idly by while I sit naked, dripping, and utterly defenseless in the same room?”

Cullen sighed. “Tamsin, are you trying to accomplish anything in particular?” What he meant, which he knew Tamsin understood, was _Are you trying to goad me until I take you against the nearest surface?_ He wasn’t so uncontrolled as to make good on that, even if she wanted him to, but the question was plain.

Tamsin paused, actually considering this.

“N0,” she said, slipping up to him and giving him a quick kiss, and then dropped her robe and draped it over the same chair that held his armor. “I just like teasing you.”

“I know you do.” Cullen caught her shoulder, taking another—still gentle—kiss from her, and then gave her a gentle push toward the bath. “Go.”

“But are you going to join me?” she asked, even as she undid the tie of her brassiere and tossed it into the wicker basket. 

“No,” Cullen decided. “I don’t need to smell of vanilla and oranges tomorrow.” Tamsin pouted slightly, pausing in unwrapping the bandage round her thigh. “And I, unlike you, actually bathed this morning.”

“You’re not going to leave, are you?”

“Of course not.” Cullen turned to pull off his cloak, tunic and trousers again, much preferring the light linen of underclothes, especially with the heat of fire and bath warming the room. Behind him, he heard the _swish_ of Tamsin’s remaining clothing landing in the basket, and then the ripple of water and a blissful sigh as she slipped into the water.

“ _Creators_ ,” she whispered, and the bliss in her voice was almost worth the last few days. Almost.

Cullen turned and looked at her. Oh, she looked happy, eyes half-closed, submerged up to her chin. Her hair floated on the surface of the water, and he could see the soft pink of her bare breasts and patch of curly silver hair between her legs. Maker, she was beautiful.

He walked over and dropped a kiss on her cheek, then continued on to the bookcases behind her desk. The water splashed as she lifted her head to watch him.

“What are you doing?”

“I want to find something.” He traced the spines of her books with one finger. Tamsin laughed softly.

“You’re such a soldier,” she said. Cullen glanced back at her.

“What do you mean?” 

She lifted one hand out of the water, gesturing to him. Cullen looked down, and realized that the hand not touching the books was tucked behind his back at the right angle of a commander’s resting posture.

“And this surprises you?”

“Not in the least.” She settled back down into the water. “What are you looking for?”

“A book of stories that I know Josephine had sent up here.”

“A book of stories? I don’t remembering seeing one of those.”

“I don’t think you would have. It was recent.” He crouched to get a look at the lower shelves. “Ah, here we are.”

“When you come back this way, will you bring me the three bottles on the hearth?”

“Of course.” Cullen retrieved the bottles for her, then pulled the other chair up beside the tub. “Do the Dalish have fairytales?”

“No, but we have traditional stories.” She sat up, careful not to splash him. “Is that what that is? Fairytales?”

“Josephine heard you asking Dorian and Bull about fables, and thought you might like this.”

She blinked down at the book, then looked at him, and her face lit up like a child on Solstice morning. 

“Are you going to _read_ to me?” she asked. 

“I-if you want,” he said, a little startled by her enthusiasm. 

“Yes please,” she said, still beaming, and scooted down in the tub like a child snuggling back under the covers. Cullen chuckled, shaking his head, and opened to the book’s table of contents. 

“Any preference?”

“Something poetic. Whimsy feels like a good direction.”

“Duly noted.” Cullen noted a page number and turned to it. 

“Are you going to do voices?” Tamsin asked suddenly. 

“No.” 

“Please?”

“No,” Cullen repeated firmly. “Do you want me to read or not?”

“Yes please.” She smiled at him apologetically. Cullen gave her a dour look, promptly ruined it with a smile, and began to read. 

“There weren't many out on the roads that morning, and the air was fresh and crisp. Even the tinkling of the bells on the players' carts seemed brighter than usual.”

Eventually, Tamsin stirred enough to pluck a bottle from the floor beside the tub and, after asking him to pause so she could duck under the water, started to wash her hair. She was moving more slowly than Cullen had seen her move in weeks, if not months. She finally, finally looked relaxed. Cullen was half-tempted to do voices as he read, just to see how much he could make her laugh, but opted not to push his luck into absurdity. 

Tamsin piled her now-clean hair up on her head in a knot that looked impossible, and sighed happily. Cullen couldn't hide the smile pulling at his lips as he read. Tamsin watched him for a little while more, and then stirred herself with a visible effort.She wet a small cloth draped over the side of the tub, put a little soap on it, lathered it up, and began to wash her body. 

"'They say,' murmured the bard, 'there are wishes in these woods. Real ones. If you are lucky enough, you can see them. They look like hope. What does hope look like, you ask? It depends. Tell me, little one. What do you think hope would look like to you?'"

Cullen turned the page. In the corner of his eye, he could see Tamsin with her soapy cloth, running it over her shoulder, forearm, breast. _Maker_ , she was beautiful. He read on, thanking his templar training for giving him the ability to read accurately and admire her at the same time. 

“Look out,” Tamsin interrupted. Cullen looked up, and she waved a hand at him, gesturing for him to stand up and step back. He did so, and she stood, water cascading off her body so she could soap up her legs, running that cloth over her thighs, avoiding the dark line of stitches, soaping up her hips, sliding it between her—

Damn it.

Cullen plucked a piece of parchment off her desk and tucked it into the book, saving his place, then stepped up to the tub. Tamsin looked at him. Boosted as she was by the bath, which was held a good five or so inches off the ground by its porcelain feet, they were almost level. Cullen placed one hand on her hip, soap sliding under his fingers. It had been too long since he touched her, and the feel of her soft skin made his breath catch in his throat. He was determined not to ruin this--she deserved her bath, damnit, and he was going to finish the story--but he was only human, and she was making his head spin.

Tamsin looked down at the hand on her hip, and then back up at him. Cullen curled his hand around the back of her neck, gentle but insistent, and caught a grin at the corners of her mouth before he kissed her. 

He wanted to make more of it, he really did. He wanted to trace her lips with his tongue, taste the mint of her water and the sweetness of her mouth, wanted to carry her, dripping and soapy, to her bed and—or maybe just the floor—but no. Oh, she made him feel like a boy of barely seventeen, but he kissed her gently and sweetly, and knew it was the right choice when she didn’t push him for more. 

Cullen pulled back just a little, just enough to rest their foreheads together. “You are beautiful,” he breathed. 

Tamsin grinned, he could hear it in her breath. “Thank you,” she whispered back, and kissed the corner of his mouth. Cullen let her go, stepped back, retrieved the book and then leaned back against the desk and waited (and _watched_ ) while she washed the rest of her body. When she sat back down, suds coming off her and floating to the water’s surface, he returned to his chair. 

"The tinker wandered farther into the forest, the bard's words echoing in her head. What did hope look like to her? It looked like summer days, like soft leather, like the swing and tap of a hammer and awl as an old thing was made whole and new again. She couldn't imagine that in a single speck of light---but then again, the day was young. What was a little detour?"

And then he stopped, stood, tucked the parchment back into the book and set it on the desk. 

“Hey,” Tamsin said, staring at him. “What?”

“You are shivering, love.” He touched his finger tips to the water; it had gotten cold. “Rinse off, I’ll get your robe.”

Tamsin sighed, but pulled the second bucket of water the mage had conjured—covered so it would stay warm longer—towards her, stood up, and upended it over her head. The water poured down her body, miraculously all ending up in the tub, and she wiped her sheet of hair out of her face. 

Cullen chuckled. “That’s one way to do it,” he said, holding out the fluffy towels she adored. Tamsin took it from him, grinning. 

“It’s the fastest.”

“And I am always surprised that it’s not the messiest.” He rubbed her side through the towel, then picked up a small, glowing crystal from where it sat on the desk and crushed it in his fist. 

A moment later, the dirty water vanished. 

For all that mages made him nervous, Tamsin's decision months ago to recruit the rebel mages and integrate them with Inquisition forces had resulted in some neat tricks. Turned out that when Dagna and Dorian were let loose on the housekeeping staff, they figured out how to make life easier for everyone. The water would be filtered, oil and dirt pulled out of it, and returned to the well, and it saved him the headache of needing to put clothes back on for maids coming in to cart out bucketfuls of dirty water. 

“Will you keep reading?” Tamsin asked. She’d traded the towel for her robe and sat now on the chair Cullen had vacated, pulling a comb through her hair.

“Of course.” Cullen leaned against the desk and picked up the book. “The forest was dark, but the tinker wasn't afraid. She knew, somehow, that nothing in the forest would harm her. The eyes glinting in the underbrush could be a nug, or a black wolf; either way, she would pass through unharmed. Somehow, she knew it, the same way she knew her own name."

Hair combed, Tamsin moved across her room and disappeared behind the open door of her wardrobe. She emerged a moment later, having traded her robe for a thin, loose shirt. There was a fresh bandage around her thigh as well, just visible through her shift. She walked over and interrupted Cullen with a kiss, then reached behind him for the tray of food.

“Here.” Cullen marked his place in the book, then helped her move the tub off to the side and lay out the meal they'd been brought: roasted ram, fresh greens from the garden, and bread rolls that steamed when they broke them open.

“Oh, our cook treats us well,” she sighed, and picked up her knife. 

Cullen hummed in agreement and joined her. 

They ate in silence, content to focus on food and warmth. When they had both had their fill, Cullen put the tray back on the desk, retrieved the book, handed Tamsin the two cups of mulled cider they’d kept for dessert, and nudged her toward the bed. Tamsin went willingly. She sighed happily when she slid into bed, and there was a joyful ease in her voice that Cullen had not heard in _far_ too long.

He slipped in beside her and lifted an arm, making room. She immediately curled up next to him, resting her head on his chest. Cullen kissed the top of her head and paused for a moment, absorbing his surroundings. 

The Inquisitor under his arm—the _Inquisitor_ under _his_ arm—smelled of citrus and fresh bread, and she was a warm, lovely weight against his side. She’d fed another few logs to the fire earlier, and now it was crackling away happily in the hearth, the warmth balanced out by the breeze coming in through the still-open balcony door. Outside, the sun had set, and the sky was a deep velvet blue. Cullen could just see the stars. 

Tamsin sighed happily, and he returned to the present, picked up the book, and continued to read. 

He told the story of the young tinker who took a chance on an old man, found a wish in a forest, and spent her luck on a new wagon and a healthy horse, instead of becoming a princess like the bard predicted. It was a fable, obviously--happiness in simplicity--but it was well-written and light-hearted. Tamsin was quietly thoughtful for a time after he closed the book.

“I liked that,” she said, finally. “I will have to thank Josephine.”

“I imagine so.” Cullen placed the book on the bedside table, trading it for his cup of cider. Tamsin had already finished hers, and her cheeks were flushed pale pink from the alcohol and the warmth. They sat in silence for a while.

“Thank you,” she said, eventually. Cullen glanced down at her. 

“What for?”

“For this.” She gestured out at their room. “For getting my head out of my ass. I… I needed to breathe.”

“Yes, you did,” he agreed, not unkindly. She made a face at him, but they both knew he was right. Cullen tucked his hand under her chin. 

“Tamsin,” he said, “promise me something.”

“What?” she asked.

“Promise me that you will _ask for help_. If I attempted to do everything you attempt, you would relieve me of my post and give all command to Rylen for as long as it took to knock some sense into me, you know you would.”

She smiled crookedly. “Yes, I probably would.”

“When I spoke to the soldiers downstairs, they both thanked me for taking care of you. Neither made a single joke, either. Why were they so worried? What happened?”

Tamsin gazed at him blankly for a moment, then looked down. Cullen’s stomach dropped.

“Tamsin?”

“It wasn’t anything big,” she muttered, suddenly sounding a dozen years her junior. Cullen frowned.

“Please tell me.”

She met his gaze then, face petulant and reluctant, but something in his eyes made her pause. Tamsin swallowed, and then mumbled, “I might have collapsed in the Undercroft.”


	4. Chapter 4

“What?” Cullen said dumbly. He couldn’t have heard her right.

Tamsin closed her eyes and inhaled through her nose. He could almost _see_ her gathering the role of the Inquisitor around her, tucking away her vulnerability and emotions into some locked box. _No_ , he thought, _don’t_ , but it was too late. When she opened her eyes, they were steely and calm, and her posture was now impeccable. 

“I was dehydrated and exhausted,” she said in the businesslike tone of a soldier’s report. Cullen ground his teeth. He hated it when she did this. Something in the very back of her lavender eyes flickered, but her iron façade didn’t waver. “I fainted in the middle of forging a battleaxe. Harritt called for the soldiers, and they brought Elle, the surgeon’s assistant. She knew that moving me to my quarters would attract attention and damage my reputation, and therefore the Inquisition’s. She sent the soldiers for potions and blankets. I woke up that evening on a makeshift bedroll in the corner of the undercroft. Elle, Harritt, and three soldiers were with me. They told me what had happened. I waited until I had recovered enough to finish my work, then reforged the battleaxe I had ruined and finished the other weapons I needed to make.”

Cullen remembered, suddenly, the red marks on Tamsin’s arms. They were healed now; all that remained were faint pink patches. “Your burns?” he asked quietly.

“Caused by sparks from dropping the axe into the forge and catching myself on the anvil,” she replied crisply. Cullen resisted the urge to grind his teeth again. It was becoming a bad habit.

“And why, in Andraste’s name, was I not told of this?” he growled.

“I ordered your soldiers not to tell you.” Of course. The only command that superseded his own was Tamsin’s.Cullen was coming to truly hate that fact.

“Why not?” he demanded.

“Because it was not something you needed to know.”

“Not something I needed to—“ Cullen’s voice broke on his anger. He couldn’t stay sitting anymore; he shoved back the blankets and strode from the bed, fists tightly clasped behind his back to keep them from shaking. He stalked to the open balcony door and stopped there, staring out at the stars until he could trust his voice.

He turned back to face the bed, though he didn’t walk any nearer. Tamsin still sat there, back still ramrod straight, watching him with impassive eyes.

_Maker take it,_ he thought, and realized he was gritting his teeth again. Shit.

The sight of her, hair mussed, surrounded by rumpled bedsheets and clothed only in a too-thin tunic, should have sent an entirely different sort of current sizzling under his skin. Instead, he just felt angry. Damn it all, he had tried and _tried_ to be here for her, be patient and understanding, help her along this impossible path—and it was impossible. He knew better than anyone, better than Tamsin herself, what kind of strain the role of Inquisitor placed on her. Some days, he was amazed it didn’t break her.

But maybe it was, he realized suddenly. Maybe it was breaking her, and this was what it looked like. Maybe Tamsin didn’t break into tears and desperation. Maybe she broke into bitter, jagged pieces that tore at everyone who tried to get close to her.

“I don’t understand your anger,” Tamsin said. Her voice was perfectly calm and level. Cullen clenched his fists so hard his joints creaked. _Don’t take that tone with me_ , he wanted to roar. _Don’t treat me like one of your damned nobles. I don’t want to be handled with kid gloves and put away in a corner. Damn it, Tamsin,_ talk _to me_!

But of course he couldn’t manage to actually _say_ any of that. All Cullen had was his anger and a slowly growing pain in his hands as his nails dug deep into his palms. He closed his eyes tightly, inhaled and exhaled as slowly as he could. His breathing shook with the effort. He did it again, and when he was sure he could speak without yelling, he opened his eyes.

Tamsin tilted her head at him, the tilt of a diplomatically polite ‘go on?’, and Cullen’s fury returned, clawing at the inside of his chest like a caged lion. “Don’t look at me like that,” he snarled. The vitriol in his own words startled him.

“Like what?” she asked mildly. Oh, he could shake her.

“Like I’m some noble you need to placate and put aside.” Cullen’s voice was low and bitter, but it wasn’t shaking. He took pride in that.

“You’re no noble,” Tamsin said. They’d teased each other before about their humble beginnings, wondering playfully how two children from such small places rose to such high positions, but something about her voice made it sound like an insult.

“You’re right,” Cullen growled, “I’m not a noble. I don’t want your diplomacy, _Tamsin_.”

Her name hung in the space between them like a thrown gauntlet, dripping poison. 

Cullen was suddenly, painfully aware of the silence. Her name was a secret between them—not literally, of course. But it was a whisper, a precious thing, a kiss in a word. In a keep full of “Inquisitor” and “Lavellan” and “Your Worship”, it was the closest he could come to publicly kissing the nape of her neck, stroking his hand down her spine, rubbing his stubble against her cheeks until she shrieked with laughter.

He’d never _snarled_ it before.

He flounderedtrying to find a way to pluck the word from the air and shove it back into his foolish, stupid mouth—

Then he saw Tamsin’s expression—flat, calculating, unaffected—and any hint of shame vanished.

“I don’t understand your anger,” she said calmly.

“Really?” Cullen growled. “You can’t understand why I’m angry? You don’t see what’s wrong with not telling me that you collapsed? And for soldiers, my soldiers, to know something about my…my…” Here he faltered. Lover, yes, but he had no tenderness for her right now. That had all been blown away by what she’d hidden from him. Woman, no, that was too crass, no matter how angry he was. She was... well, in the end, she had always been just one thing. “My Inquisitor that I don’t know, is a failure of command. You set me up for that.”

“I doubt your men think you a fool,” Tamsin mused.

“I never said that,” Cullen snapped, keeping his voice down with some difficulty. “It is not a matter of being a fool, but there seems to be no point to my explaining it, because you aren’t listening. You don’t understand. You have never led soldiers, and you never will.” He knew as soon as he said it that it was a mistake. He was full of those tonight. _Yes, of course, Rutherford, use her name like a curse and then insult her leadership. You’re brilliant_. Maker, he was a fool.

But she didn’t flinch, or scowl, or break her mask in any way. The only indication that she’d heard him was the slow, almost imperceptible rise of one eyebrow.

_Who is this woman_? Cullen wondered. Who was this pillar of ice in his lover’s skin? He had made a damned fool of himself, hurling cruel barbs at her softest spots. She should be livid—that, or wounded to her core—but she was neither. She just watched him with that unreadable expression and her quirked eyebrow. This was not his Tamsin. This was someone else. This was…

This was the Inquisitor.

Something low in Cullen’s belly cooled and hardened. He exhaled heavily, and felt the crushing weight of reality land on his shoulders. Tamsin—his Tamsin, his girl, his shining shadow with a mischievous streak a mile long—had vanished.

He was still angry. Oh, he was very angry. He was angry that she hadn’t told him about her collapse, because it meant either she didn’t trust him, or he wasn’t important enough in her eyes to know. Both possibilities cut deep. He was angry that she had commanded his soldiers not to tell him, because it undermined him. He was angry that her return to the woman he knew and loved had been so short. He was angry—no, he was furious—that she had been so distant for so long, and had barely acknowledged it, and now she was back in that cold, unreachable place.

Cullen had not felt anger like this in a very, very long time. He tamped it down, breathing and clenching until it no longer threatened to consume him.

And still, Tamsin watched him, and said nothing.

_I can’t do this_ , Cullen realized suddenly, and the realization hit him like a blade to the gut. _I can’t… I can’t do this. Oh Maker, I love her so much, but I can’t do this._ He didn’t know what ‘this’ was, not really, but he knew it involved staying in this room any longer.

He inhaled and exhaled again, telling himself it wasn’t a heavy sigh, and walked across the room. Tamsin watched him, alert and impassive.

Cullen plucked his undershirt from where it lay draped across the chair and drew it on, then his tunic over that. Behind him, the fire popped. Laughter and calls floated up from Skyhold’s heart, drifting in through the open balcony door on the breeze. His tunic rustled as he buckled on his breastplate, then pauldrons, greaves, bracers. On went his boots, the draped doublet, his cloak, the fur ruff.

His armor was so very heavy.

Cullen suppressed another sigh as he walked up to the bed and crouched beside it to pick up his sword belt. As he rose, he turned to look Tamsin in the eyes. She watched him, face unmoving as dragonbone, eyes dark. Gone was the need, the vulnerability, the affection. The night was dark, and the only light in the room was the dancing fire, the flicker of the mirrored lamps on her desk and bedside table, and the flash and spark of green from the Anchor.

Cullen drew the belt around his waist, feeling the cool metal of the buckle against his bare fingers, and glanced towards his gloves. Just the gloves, and then he would be fully dressed and have no reason to stay here in this room, confronted and abandoned by the woman he loved in the same eveni-

He stopped.

 

_The Anchor?_

 

Cullen turned back to Tamsin and looked, really looked, at her. He’d been too far away to see all of her—the blankets and shadows of evening had hidden her hands, legs, the cant of her waist. But now he was close enough to touch her, and he could see her.

He could see her fists, clenched in her lap, white-knuckled, the Anchor spitting sparks between her fingers with such fury he almost expected it to set the blankets on fire. He could see her legs, folded under her crooked, as if she’d sat up while leaning on something, lost that support, and hadn’t had the will—or the nerve—to move. And he could see her torso, core so tense that she was shaking. Her shoulders and head were perfectly still, but the thin fabric of her shirt fluttered with the tremors where it lay across her ribs and abdomen.

Cullen raised his eyes, slowly, hopeful but reluctant, and met Tamsin’s gaze. He waited. One breath, two, three…

_Say something,_ he prayed silently. _Prove me wrong. Please._

Four breaths. Five. Six. Cullen clenched his jaw against the sudden black wave that threatened to drown him and looked back at his belt, breaking eye contact. 

“I don’t understand your anger,” Tamsin murmured again, and Cullen almost laughed from the sheer futility of it, before he heard the emphasis: I don’t understand _your_ anger.

“Alright,” he said, turning to her. One hand still held his not-yet-buckled sword belt, unwilling to drop it or commit to putting it all the way on. “What don’t you understand?”

She just _looked_ at him. Cullen was tempted to turn away again, but… well, he had been cruel. He would be kind in this, at least. Patience counted as kindness.

Tamsin’s expression was flat and unmoving, and Cullen started to doubt that he’d heard anything in her voice at all. Then the Anchor flared and spat, showering the blanket with ephemeral green sparks and lighting Tamsin’s face up with a sickly sheen. Cullen remembered, suddenly and with sickening clarity, that moment months and months ago, at Adamant, when she had stepped from the Fade covered in the stuff of nightmares, and he had been so grateful for his helmet, because if he hadn’t been wearing it someone would have seen the tears of relief that trickled from his eyes.

How fitting, he thought dully, that this starts and ends like this. Varric could probably find some wretched poetry in it.

“It was not my intention to lie to you,” The Inquisitor said, slowly and carefully. Cullen refocused on her, though she was looking somewhere in the vicinity of his chin. “I was attempting to avoid distracting you.”

“Your welfare is not a distraction,” Cullen muttered.

“I am aware,” she replied, “but it was no longer an issue of my welfare. The problem occurred, and was remedied.”

“Was it?” Cullen asked, and she glanced up to meet his eyes before dropping his gaze again. That, at least, was unlike the Inquisitor.

“I can take care of myself,” she said coolly.

So much for calm. Cullen dropped his swordbelt with a crash, barely resisting the urge to throw the entire thing across the bed. If it had been a less precious blade in the scabbard, he wouldn’t have bothered restraining himself. Tamsin glanced back up at him, and the Anchor spat green fire from between her fingers.

“That’s your reply?” Cullen growled, voice barely quieter than a shout. Tamsin glanced at him, then at the open balcony doors behind him. Cullen turned on his heel, stalked over the doors and closed them before turning back to face her. “You can take care of yourself?” he repeated, distance and the chance to breathe helping him to lower his voice just a bit.

“I’ve stayed alive this long, haven’t I?” Tamsin retorted, and finally, finally there was something in her voice, something hot and clipped that sounded more like Tamsin and less like the Inquisitor.

“Alive and taking care of yourself are not the same thing,” he retorted.

“Aren’t they?” she snapped back.

“No. Cole’s kitten is alive, but it can’t take care of itself.” This wasn’t the point Cullen had been trying to make, but arguing with Tamsin felt like holding onto a wild hart. It was going to go where it wanted, and he had to stay with it.

“Is that all I am to you?” Tamsin’s voice was low and dangerous, but it was hers. Finally, finally, it was hers. “A useless, mewling kit, to be rescued, hand-fed and carried somewhere safe?” _Oh_ , Cullen thought distantly _, I was right._ _The barn cat didn’t have a litter._ The thought left as quickly as it had come, chased away by Tamsin leaning towards him, though she didn’t get up from the bed and her hands were still clasped tightly in her lap. “Am I so helpless, with my foolish fixations and childish concerns? Am I so useless to you, Commander, you with your legions of loyal soldiers which I could never _hope_ to lead?” _Ah, I deserved that._ But Tamsin wasn’t done.

“Pardon me,” she hissed, “for allowing myself to be compelled by those who need me. Pardon me for deciding their needs take priority over my own. You must excuse me, great and noble Knight-Commander, for endeavoring to right the wrongs around me, even at the risk of myself. I lost who I was the night the sky rent and I had this holy mission—” this, with vitriol and scorn “—burned into my hand. I had thought you knew what that is like, to have something take who you are from you. How are your lyrium cravings?”

Cullen felt as though he’d been struck. He swallowed, forcing back the wave of want that the very mention of the drug brought forward, and drew himself up, pressing his shoulders back. “That,” he snarled, “was not fair.”

“Fair?” Tamsin asked, with a bark of derisive laughter. “Fair?” She unclasped her hands and green lightning sprang from her palm. It lanced through the air, striking at the carpet, the ceiling, the fireplace and the windows. The fire flared, cracked as a log split, and sparks rained, green and orange, onto the stone lip of the hearth. The room stank of ozone.

Tamsin pushed herself off the bed. The Anchor calmed somewhat, licking at the carpet beneath her feet and the shift round her body, churning the air into a frenzied wind around her. The linen of her shift whipped and clung, showing every line of her body, clinging to bare breast and smooth hip, catching on the dark stitches on her leg, but there was nothing erotic or intimate about it. She was all fury and power.

Cullen wondered, in an almost laughable moment of clarity, what he had just gotten himself into. 

“Fair doesn’t exist in our world, Commander,” she snarled. “Fair gets us home safe at night with a warm meal on the table, not days and weeks spent slogging through marshes or hiking through waist-deep snow drifts. Fair would make you the Inquisitor, or Cassandra, or Leliana. Someone with real power, not some backwater elf bumbling through, barely able to fight, much less lead a movement.”

Oh, poor Tamsin, of course. Cullen’s fury returned, like the tide coming back to shore. “This is not about your insecurities, Tamsin,” he growled.

“Oh, and it’s about you?” she demanded, striding towards him. He could feel the wind whipping about her as she approached. “It’s about you, of course, your pride and your dignity, your precious command. But your authority stops at me, Commander. I am not yours to summon at will or command to divulge all my secrets.”

“And if you were,” Cullen growled, stepping towards her. “how much easier would our lives be if you would listen to me once in a while?”

“Listen to you? Listen to you?” The Anchor was quieting, its energy spent, but Tamsin’s fury had not abated. She drew herself up as high as she could, which was not far—she only came up to Cullen’s shoulder—but she had no shortage of presence. “I am not your _woman_ , Cullen, for you to bark orders at as you do your men. I will not be belittled, in public or in private. I don’t know when you lost your mind, but it must have been some time ago, because you seem to be forgetting every time I have listened to you, every time I have respected your counsel or taken your advice. Evidently that respect only runs one way.”

“I’m not talking about your respect in the war room. I earned that. I mean us, Tamsin. You and me. What we are… have… had.” He was floundering, he could feel it. “If you would have listened, would have slowed down, taken care of yourself—”

“I did, damn you!” Tamsin yelled. “I took care of myself, no thanks to you. You want me to credit you for something you didn’t _do_! What right do you have to be angry, Cullen? What right do you have to harass me for how I live my life? It is mine, Cullen, and I choose to give it to the Inquisition, and you don’t get a Fen’harel-bitten say!”

Cullen opened his mouth to speak—what he didn’t do? What the hell was she talking about?—but Tamsin plowed right over him, and he had to hold back the fury that jumped in his throat.

“Tell me, then, oh great and wise Commander. Tell me what right you have to tell me how to live my life, to order me about. What right?” She pressed her Anchor-branded palm to his chest. He could feel the sparks through his breastplate and tunic, crackling painlessly against his skin. “Well? If your conviction is so righteous, oh great Knight-Captain, give me your reason why—”

Cullen interrupted her with a bellow, furious and entirely done with being mocked by his past.

 

_“I was scared!”_


	5. Chapter 5

 

That stopped them both short. Tamsin froze mid-sentence, staring up at him. Cullen blinked. He was scared?

But as he wondered, poking and prodding the sentence in his mind, it rang true. He was scared. Oh, he was terrified.

“Scared?” Tamsin repeated, one eyebrow raised in what was probably supposed to be wry humor, though it came across as a desperate grab for something familiar. The Anchor against his chest had gone silent.

“Yes,” Cullen said.

“Of what?” There was that scorn, but it didn’t sting the way Cullen expected it to. He honestly had no idea what he was scared of; the words had jumped from his lips unbidden. He inhaled, closed his eyes, and trusted them to do it again.

“Losing you.”

“Losing me?” Tamsin asked. “Why would you lose me?”

“I… I knew you were working too hard. Pushing yourself too much. You weren’t giving yourself enough time to sleep, eat, just recover. If you went out and were ambushed, or, Maker forbid, we were attacked here, you wouldn’t survive. Not in the state you were in.”

Tamsin watched him for a long moment, furrowed brows casting shadows over the branches on her cheeks. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

Cullen frowned at her. “I did.”

Tamsin scowled right back at him. “No, you didn’t.”

“Yes, I did.” He took a step forward. Tamsin took her hand from his chest and took a step backwards, keeping the distance between them. “Every chance I got, every time I got a half-second alone, I told you I was worried.”

She paused, and he could see her memory working hard. “Are… are you talking about the moments on the battlements or in the hallway?”

“Yes.”

“Cullen,” she sighed, and his hackles rose at the patronizing tone of her voice, “Saying ‘you look tired’ or ‘have you eaten recently’ is not at all the same as telling me you’re worried for my survival.”

“Yes, it—”

“No, it really isn’t.” Andraste’s tits, would she ever stop interrupting him? “It’s the same thing I say to you after a long day of training, or to Josephine when she’s been up all night responding to pissy nobles. Snatched bits of conversation are not the same as taking the time to tell me—“

“I would have taken ‘the time’, if you’d given me the damned chance.” Cullen didn’t care that he’d interrupted her. She’d started it. He knew his logic was childish and petty, but he didn’t care about that, either.

“If I gave you a chance?” Tamsin repeated, shocked, stepping back. “I gave you nothing but chances!”

“Don’t lie to me, Tamsin,” he growled.

“I’m not lying! Every moment I had an excuse, I was near you, giving you a damned ‘chance’!”

“And how often was that?” he snapped. “Once a week? Twice, maybe?”

“I would have had more chances to be around you if you’d given me a fucking reason!” She was loud now, louder than she’d yet been, though the Anchor was nothing but a silent scar on her palm.

“I gave you plenty of reasons!”

“’Oh, Inquisitor, I have a report for you’ isn’t a reason. If a messenger can save me the trip, it isn’t a reason for me to come by!”

“That’s exactly why it’s a reason for you to come by!” He bellowed back. “If I didn’t want to see you, I would have had the messenger sodding do it!”

“In the future,” she snarled, “if you want me to take a moment with you, don’t have your study full of soldiers. It makes it a bit hard to linger.”

“Strangely, Tamsin, you weren’t the only busy one. I couldn’t very well turn my men away the moment the Inquisitor walked in the door.”

“And you never thought to coordinate those two things? Ask me to come get something and send your men away ahead of time?”

“I did. You didn’t show.”

“When?” she asked incredulously.

“Two weeks ago.”

“Two weeks ago?” Tamsin repeated. “You mean when I was in the Undercroft, forging the weapons your men will carry into battle?”

Cullen paused, at a loss. Fuck. She was right.

Tamsin laughed at the look on his face.

“One attempt does not a campaign make, Cullen,” she said, and her voice was more tired than anything else.

“And one failed attempt at timing doesn’t ruin it all, Tamsin. I was there every time you came to me, waiting for a chance. Any chance. To speak with you, kiss you… to… anything,” he finished lamely.

Tamsin tilted her head at him, but this was an honest tilt, one that had weariness and incredulity wrapped up in a single gesture. He didn’t like it, but at least it wasn’t condescending. “And, pray tell,” she asked, her voice cold, “how many times did _you_ come to _me_?”

Cullen opened his mouth to reply, and she cut him off: “Tonight doesn’t count.”

He opened and closed his mouth once more, before realizing that he was well and truly at a loss.

“There’s your answer,” Tamsin said flatly. “How was I to know you wanted to see me when you never asked, never came to me? You’re busy, as are we all. I couldn’t very well trust that I was more important in any given moment than your men, because I know I’m not. Sometimes,” she allowed, at the look on his face, “but not always. I didn’t have the time or energy to spend on failed attempts to get your attention.”

“Neither did I,” Cullen grumbled. Tamsin scowled.

“Maybe not, but at least I gave you some damned openings.”

“Which openings were those?” Oh, two could play this blame game. “When you—”

“Perhaps when I kissed you?” Tamsin snapped.

“Of course, because each little kiss was an opening. You and I both know that’s not how it works, Tamsin. I wasn’t about to take more than you were giving, and you weren’t giving me anything.”

“I gave y—“

“What?” Cullen growled, deciding that this conversation was going to be all interruptions anyway. “What were you giving me, exactly, when you had me accompany you to the market or the battlements to talk shop? When you sent a messenger to fetch me to you so we could discuss battle plans? What were you hoping for? Me to throw you atop the war table and take you then and there?”

“Maybe if you had, none of this would have happened, and we wouldn’t be having this conversation!”

“Oh?” Cullen stepped forward, pressing into the space Tamsin had put between them—but she didn’t move. She glared up at him, refusing to budge. “Is that how it should work? I do what I like and hope you’re alright with it?”

“It would be better than not doing anything at all,” Tamsin spat.

“Really?” He growled. Tamsin glowered at him, furious and unyielding, and before his common sense could catch up with him, Cullen grabbed her chin in one hand and kissed her hard.

He expected her to pull away, to shove him back and go off on him about taking liberties. He had a whole store of anger deep inside him that he was ready to draw on to withstand any lecture from his Inquisitor, because he was angry enough to do something very stupid just to prove a point. But she didn’t pull back. There was a moment, half a heartbeat, where Tamsin was startled into stillness—and then she surged up against him, grabbing his shoulders as she kissed him back.

It was not a nice kiss. It was vicious and messy; Tamsin’s nails scraped against Cullen’s armor where she gripped him, as if unsure whether to pull him in or shove him back. He wrapped his free arm around her and fisted his hand in the linen shift between her shoulder blades, pulling the shirt tight across her chest. She bit his bottom lip. Cullen hissed with the pain and tightened his fingers on her chin, then stroked his tongue deep into her mouth, taking as he pleased.

She made a rough, wild noise in the back of her throat and moved, wrapping her hands in the draped fabric of his vest and yanking him towards her. She swiped her tongue against his bottom lip, then his top, laving too-roughly against the sensitive skin of his scar. Cullen swallowed the groan that rose in his chest, but he couldn’t stop himself from catching, the rhythm of his claim on Tamsin’s mouth faltering.

She was grinning, he could feel it, and that galled him. Then she did it again, or tried to, sweeping her wet tongue across his lip—but Cullen pulled away, glaring down at her.

Tamsin was grinning, damp lips already red and swollen from their kisses. Cullen wondered, suddenly, how that smug smile would look wrapped around his cock. Arousal flared deep in his belly, and Tamsin must have seen something of it in his face, because her smile only widened. She looked like a cat in the cream, and Cullen was not amused.

He let go of her shift and slid that hand up her back, trailing a fingertip across the nape of her neck in warning. There was just enough time for Tamsin’s eyes to widen and her smile to falter before Cullen grabbed a handful of silver hair and pulled hard.

What came out of her mouth was somewhere between a moan and a cry, ripped from deep inside her. Tamsin’s knees almost buckled, but she kept herself upright with visible effort. Her face was flushed, points of red high on her cheeks, and she sucked air in through parted lips even as she glared at him.

“That was not fair,” she hissed.

“Fair doesn’t exist in our world, Inquisitor,” Cullen parroted back at her. Her glare darkened to a glower.

“Very well,” she said and, in a well-practiced move, slid her hand down his belly and palmed the length of him through his trousers. Cullen shuddered despite himself and her grin returned. “No fair, no foul, _Commander._ ”

“Very well,” he growled, and caught a glimpse of the heat that flashed through her eyes before he tilted her head towards him and crashed their lips together.

Tamsin rose to meet him even as she stumbled back from the force. Cullen followed, hands too busy in her hair and holding her chin to pull her in.She clung to him with one hand and played the fingers of her other across the bulge in his trousers, pressing and rubbing across him in the way that she knew made him weak, and he hated that.

_Don’t_ , he almost said, muscle memory rising up in the eye of the storm that was his anger. _Slow down, you first, let me…_ But she wouldn’t slow down, and he wasn’t about to admit weakness, and so he did the next best thing:he let his hips jerk forward into her touch and groaned into her mouth.

Tamsin faltered, startled—she hadn’t expected him to go with it. Cullen took the chance to swoop down, grab her waist, and toss her gracelessly onto the bed just behind her.

She landed on her back with a startled ‘oof’, but before she could scramble up, get off the bed, find equal footing, Cullen leaned over the bed, grabbed the ankle of her good leg, and pulled her towards him.

“Don’t move,” he growled, and reached for the buckle of his pauldron.

Tamsin moved, of course. She twisted towards him and sat up on her knees, leaning forward and running her hands all along the line of his cock through his pants. Cullen fumbled the buckle, and the heavy curve of metal hit the ground with a painfully loud clang.

“Damnit,” he growled, catching her hands in his. She grinned up at him, all teeth and no tenderness. Cullen needed to get out of his armor without her pawing at him, so he did the only thing he could think of.

He leaned forward. She backed away from the heavy weight of his armor instinctively, scooting towards the middle of the bed. Cullen followed her onto the bed, leaning over her and straddling her thighs so she couldn’t wiggle out from under him. He took both her hands in one of his own—Maker, she was little; it still surprised him—and pressed them to the mattress above her head.

Tamsin blinked up at him, then scowled. He didn’t use his height against her often, but when he did, it worked. He had her pinned. There was no point in her trying to plead her way out of this—they both knew she wouldn’t get anywhere—so as Cullen, still leaning over her, carefully stripped off his armor piece by piece, she began to wiggle and writhe underneath him, trying to work free.

Years and years of practice with his armor, of putting it on in the dark, rushing through the motions as alarm bells rang, had embedded the memory deep in Cullen’s muscles. He worked leather tongues free from iron buckles, carefully stripping away each piece as Tamsin squirmed. It wasn’t easy. She was strong and flexible—things he had, at other times, adored about her—and he had to concentrate on keeping her pinned throughout. He couldn’t get his vest all the way off, trapped as it was by his hand around her wrists, and he briefly considered tying her hands together with it before deciding to leave it there, the red fabric spilling across the sheets.

Breastplate was a bit harder—he had to twist his shoulders and pull his elbows in to keep it from falling onto her—but he managed it, and before long he was down to trousers and shirtsleeves.

Undressing had forced Cullen to slow down. He paused, now, examining the writhing woman underneath him. She paused under his scrutiny, glaring back at him, eyes glinting with… with what? Cullen examined the expression, searching for anything alarming: panic, fear, pain. But though her expression bordered on thunderous, Cullen saw nothing warning him to stop.

_You love her,_ whispered an insidious little voice in the back of his head, _you know you do. Give in, let her win. She’s the Inquisitor. Who are you to expect her to do anything for you? She’s more important. Give up._

_No_ , Cullen thought fiercely. He knew that thinking was mad. Tamsin had been the one to teach him that. He refocused his attention on the woman underneath him. Tamsin. Infuriating, stubborn, willful woman, he loved her—and he hadn’t touched her in weeks. And she was blaming that on him.

Tamsin inhaled as if she was about to say something, and Cullen caught her gaze just in time to see the glint of wickedness in her eye before she arched her back and rolled her hips.

He’d pinned her well enough that her legs weren’t going anywhere, but Cullen hadn’t been keeping track of what _exactly_ she’d been up to with all her squirming. While he’d been shucking his armor, she’d shimmied her hips up, giving herself just enough room to grind up against him. It was a struggle, but it was still friction, and Cullen was again abruptly and roughly reminded of _just_ how long it had been since they’d last been in this position.

She did it again. It was barely more than a brush, enough to aggravate but not enough to please, and Cullen decided he’d give her what he wanted.

He let her go. The moment his grip loosened, Tamsin yanked her hands free. She grabbed the back of his thighs, tugged him forward—and off balance—and with a twist of her good leg their roles were reversed, Cullen now on his back with Tamsin straddling him. She didn’t bother trying to pin him. Instead, she planted both hands on his chest, grinned another mirthless grin, and rolled her hips again, hard and rough and just right.

He groaned, both hands snapping to her waist, thin shift creasing under his fingers, and pulled her against him. She rocked with the pull of his grip, grin widening, watching him like a hawk watching a mouse, as if she could make him come just like this. As if he was a boy again, unfettered and new, desperate for anything at all—and there it was, that condescension in her eyes, and Cullen’s anger flared again.

He sat up, grabbing the hem of her tunic where it bunched around her thighs and whipping it off her all in one fluid motion. The moment the shift was gone, he tangled his hands in her hair, forcing her head back and drawing a hot line down the column of her throat with his tongue before sucking a love bite over her pulse point.

“Fenedhis,” Tamsin swore. “That’ll show.”

Cullen chuckled mirthlessly—that was the idea—and broke away long enough to yank off his own shirt before crashing their lips together.

Her bare breasts dragged against his chest, lighting sparks that went straight to his groin. Tamsin grasped at his shoulders, steadying herself as she ground against him. Cullen could feel the heat of her, even through the layers of his trousers and their smalls, and it made his cock jump.

Tamsin huffed a laugh into his mouth and broke her rhythm to rock slowly, a long drag of her pelvis against his, and _Maker’s balls_ he could feel the slick drag of her smalls catching against his trousers. She dug her nails into his back and did it again, torturously slow.

One of his hands snapped to her hips, though whether it was to stop her or make her continue, he didn’t know. Tamsin shifted her weight, twitching her hips forward, and damn it all, he could fucking _smell_ her. She was heat and wet and lust in a breath. Cullen tightened his grip in hair and on hip, struggling to hold on to his last tenuous threads of control, stay with some sort of pace, because if he didn’t, he didn’t know what would happen.

Tamsin grazed her teeth along his bottom lip, and then hissed into his mouth, “We could have had all of this every night, if you’d only _bothered_.”

There was no gradation, no moment of adjustment. Cullen snapped like a bowstring. He didn’t have the presence of mind to properly return to their verbal argument; all he had was the fury under his skin and the lust in his bones.

“We could have had all of this every night, if you’d only _asked_ ,” he hissed back, and then pushed her off his lap.

Tamsin fell back with a yelp, shocked, but before she could find a response, Cullen rose to his knees, turned her around and pulled her in, back to chest. He splayed one hand across her abdomen, fingers playing at the band of her smalls, and then, with a mind for her wound but with no preamble, he pulled them down.

She yelped again, overbalancing and falling into his hand—but he didn’t catch her. Cullen let her fall forward, let her flop into the blankets and then scramble to get her arms under her. He pulled her smalls the rest of the way off, and made quick work of his own clothing; by the time she was on her hands and knees, he had one hand on her hip, and was dropping his own pants over the side of the bed with the other.

A second to pause, to assess her, watch her face carefully as she glanced back and her eyes went bright with mild surprise and then narrow with something else when she saw him, hard as steel and poised at her entrance, the tip of his cock already glistening. A second to look again for the hurt, the fear, anything demanding that he stop, because this was beyond new territory, and anger was one thing, but he would still die before he demanded anything she wasn’t willing to give…

But Tamsin looked up and met Cullen’s gaze, then canted her hips back a hairsbreadth and raised an eyebrow: _Well_?

The force of his first thrust dropped Tamsin to her elbows. She moaned openly, pressing her forehead to the bed, and their little charade ended. No more pretending to be unaffected, no more power play. Her hands tangled in the sheets and her back arched, every pull and every thrust wringing little sounds from her throat.

Cullen had not seen this in far, far too long. He hadn’t heard her voice, every little gasp and moan, hadn’t felt her hot and slick around him, and his anger at her silence burned as brightly as his lust as he drove into her.

“Creators,” Tamsin moaned, and slipped a hand between her legs, reaching for her clit. Cullen batted her hand out of the way, offended; she turned her head, expression incredulous and a new level of angry—and then he replaced her hand with his own, callused fingertips painting tiny circles, and Tamsin’s anger dissolved in a cloud of pleasure. “Fenedhis,” she swore a moment later, and then, hushed and quick, “Oh, oh…”

_Come for me,_ Cullen demanded of her. The words never left his lips, but he thought them again and again, fingers slick and rough between her legs. Tamsin grabbed again at the sheets, hair falling across her face as if to hide the flush that Cullen could see creeping up her ears. He knew from memory what she looked like when she was like this: cheeks pink, lips parted, silver strands of hair plastered against skin damp with sweat. All he could see now, though, was the pale, scarred expanse of her back, marred by wounds he remembered and some he didn’t. Tamsin turned her face from him, pressing it into the sheets as her hips stuttered and she tightened around him.

_No_ , he thought, _don’t hide from me_. He leaned forward to grab her shoulder, reveling in the little noise she made when the angle shifted, and pulled her with him as he sat back on his heels. Tamsin faltered for a moment, as if disoriented by the change—and then Cullen wrapped his arms around her torso and thrust up into her, and her head fell back onto his shoulder with a moan.

“Fuck,” she whispered, almost whimpered, hands scrabbling for purchase before latching onto his arm. She scratched him hard, back arching, hips twisting in tiny, stuttered circles as he pounded into her with rough, shallow thrusts, the weight of her on his lap keeping him so deep he imagined he could feel her heartbeat pulsing around him. “ _P-pala em_ ,” Tamsin gasped, voice cracking, and Cullen didn’t know what her words meant, but he did his best to oblige anyway.

He tightened his hold on her with one arm and dropped his free hand between her legs, finding her clit and again taking up that slick, rough pattern. Tamsin moaned and pressed against him, shivering, the Elvhen on her lips replaced by something breathless and muffled that Cullen couldn’t make out, but might have been _please, please_ …

Come for me, he thought. He didn’t know whether it was a command or a plea, but he meant it either way—and he hissed it into her ear, scraped his teeth against her neck, and she did.

Tamsin let out a broken moan, back arching hard as she clenched around his cock, burning-hot and perfect. Cullen didn’t stop. He kept his calloused fingers on her clit, kept rutting against her, bit down on the tendon between her shoulder and neck, because come on, come on, he could hold on just a bit longer, he knew her body, knew that if she let him—

She squirmed, moaning and whimpering in a single sound, grasping at his wrist as if to pull his hand away. “Wait,” she gasped, “It’s too…I can’t…”

“No,” Cullen growled, “you _can_.”

She shivered against him, tremors of _close so close_ rippling through her. Cullen managed a single thought of gloating triumph before Tamsin spasmed around him with a wordless cry. He thrust once, twice, and came so hard he saw stars, muffling his shout against her shoulder as he emptied himself into her.

He came back to himself slowly, breathing hard. Tamsin was boneless against him, head still back against his shoulder; he loosened his hold on her and she stirred enough to pull away from him, half-collapsing onto the sheets. He felt cold the moment she left him, both from the sudden lack of her body heat against and around him, and because he remembered with startling clarity what had gotten them here in the first place.

Cullen’s post-orgasm haze evaporated instantly. He swallowed heavily against the rush of loneliness that threatened to consume him and sank to the bed beside Tamsin, careful not to touch her.

She had her back to him, and she didn’t move as the bed dipped under his weight. Cullen dropped an arm across his face, shielding his eyes—or hiding. He wasn’t sure which.

He had won whatever twisted game they had been playing, but the victory stung worse than defeat would have. Cullen huffed out a heavy breath, pretending those weren’t tears pricking at the corners of his eyes. What was it worth? he wondered. What had this victory gotten him? Certainly nothing he hadn’t had half an hour ago. They’d fucked, yes, rough and merciless, and now they lay silent on her bed, the air cooling the sweat and come on their bodies, and the handspan between them might as well have been an endless chasm.

_Well_ , Cullen thought hopelessly, _I guess that’s that_.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out how to not make this end too easily. Arguments are easy to write, harder to conclude.  
> I also went back and cleaned up the last few chapters. I strongly recommend rereading them; the gist is the same, but the prose is better, and some of the lines are much cleaner. It's actually something I'm halfway proud of.  
> Thank you for your patience with this one. I had to edit out several little vignettes as I was going; fun things that would have been goofy or endearing to read, but derailed the pacing beyond saving. I may make a drabble collection later.

 

Sleepiness crept up on him shortly after, but the sick feeling in his stomach was enough to keep it at bay. Cullen lay unmoving for a little while longer, staring up at the canopy over Tamsin’s bed. She was silent beside him, the only sound the soft rasp of her breathing. 

_I could stay here forever_ , Cullen thought dully, _and it wouldn’t make a difference._ Some small, stupid, hopeful part of him wanted to try anyway, to stay and pretend that if he didn’t move, he wouldn’t have to face what they were becoming, but he wasn’t a fool. A hopeless romantic, yes, but not a fool. 

_Not a fool,_ he thought to himself, letting the words curdle in his mind until they forced him to action. He inhaled, exhaled, pretended it wasn’t a sigh, and sat up. 

Cullen glanced to Tamsin. She still lay on her side, turned away from him, arms tucked into her chest. He knew without looking that she would have goosebumps, and her nipples would be tight and pebbled from the chill. She sometimes used to reach for him, pull his hands and placed them over her breasts to warm them. The first time she’d done it, he'd flushed bright pink, and she’d giggled at him. 

But there was no reaching, now. No warm hands on chilled skin, no mischievous grin. 

He needed to move, or he would stay. _Not a fool_. 

Cullen turned, swung his legs over the edge of the bed. The carpet was unfairly soft under his bare feet. _Not a fool_. He leaned forward, braced himself, summoned the willpower to stand and start the painful process of walking out of the Inquisitor’s bedroom. 

“Wait.” 

He turned. Tamsin’s back was still to him, but she’d lifted her head, and was looking at him over her shoulder. Her face was inscrutable, but there wasn’t quite as much steel in it as there had been before. 

“For what?” 

“I…” She bit her lip, then slowly turned to face him. She was moving gingerly, but not out of pain, or soreness… Cullen wondered if she sensed the same fragility in the air that he did. 

She looked at him, then looked down at the coverlet between them, and said nothing. Cullen waited, and still she didn’t speak. Finally, he sighed. 

“Please, Tamsin.” _Let it go. Don’t keep me here waiting for something you’re not going to give. Six weeks is all I can take of that._

“I… I’m trying. Give me a minute,” she grumbled at the blankets. Cullen blinked, and then he waited. 

The fire popped in the hearth. Tamsin shifted, pulling her good leg under her for better balance, knotting her fingers together, and stayed silent. Her gaze remained firmly on the bed. Cullen could just hear the calls of soldiers greeting each other as the watch changed down on the battlements. 

Finally, she spoke. 

“I don’t know how to do this,” she said, very softly. “I’m not…” she trailed off, and then laughed wryly. “I was never a team player. My Keeper lectured me for it more than once. I… did I ever tell you about my sister?”

“No.”

“She vanished when I was sixteen. I went looking for her, instead of looking after my niece and nephew like everyone had told me too, like I knew she’d _want_ me too, and almost got myself killed.” She shrugged at his sympathetic noise. “Thanks, but it was a long time ago. My point is, I’m very bad at… at _not_ doing things all on my own.” 

Finally, Tamsin looked up and met Cullen’s gaze.

“Do you remember the first time, back on the battlements?” Cullen nodded. “I said back then that I don’t want to do this without you. I still don’t. I… I’m bad at that, I know I am. I’m really bad at it. But I don’t… If you…” She closed her eyes, caught her bottom lip between her teeth, and took a moment to breathe. When she opened her eyes, there was something soft and shining and fragile in them that Cullen hadn’t seen in a long time. 

“If you turned around and walked out right now, I would understand. This isn’t easy. _I’m_ not easy. But I… well, I don’t want you to. I want to figure this out.” She reached out, and Cullen caught her hand instinctively. “Please stay.” 

“Of course.” Cullen twined their fingers together, and gave her hand a reassuring squeeze. The look of relief on her face was so strong he could almost feel it. “I want to figure it out too, love. I…” He paused, thinking, and then winced. “I have a lot to apologize for.”

“So do I,” she murmured, tugging gently on his hand. Cullen followed her lead, shifting all the way back onto the bed. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the Undercroft. I just… I think I wanted it to be over. If I didn't mention it, then I wouldn’t have to explain it.” She made a face at that reasoning. “I guess. I don’t know how I would have brought it up, but I should have.” 

Cullen smiled crookedly. “There’s really no good way to say ‘By the way I collapsed last night’.”

“No, there isn’t.” She matched his smile, relief flashing across her face again. “And you didn’t come to me, so I figured you were too busy, or didn’t want me around, and popping into your office to drop that bee grenade seemed like a bad idea.” 

“I always want you around, Tamsin.”

“I know,” she said with a tired sigh. Cullen frowned at her tone, and she squeezed his fingers. “I mean, I know that _now_. I just… I tell myself I don’t need anyone, and I know that’s not true, but I tell myself that anyway. How would I know to assume that you need me?” She tilted her head, searching his gaze. “Do you see?”

Cullen nodded slowly. “I think so. But, love, I’m a soldier. That… going off on your own gets you killed, on the field and off. That’s not… It’s…” he sighed, rubbing his forehead with his knuckles. “I’m trying to say that I think I see being a part of a team the way you see being independent. It’s who I am.”

“We’re opposites.” Tamsin shook her head with a wry smile. “Because life can’t be easy.”

Cullen laughed despite himself. “We’re fighting a deluded god with a pet Archdemon who’s trying to take over the world. Different points of view on survival styles are nothing.”

“And yet, here we are,” Tamsin murmured somberly, and Cullen sobered. 

“Here we are,” he agreed. They were quiet for a moment, both watching their intertwined fingers. 

“I’m sorry,” he said, “about what I said about leadership. That was… I was wrong and I wish I hadn’t said it.” 

“Thank you,” she murmured. “I’m sorry I’m a stubborn ass who can’t ask for help or figure out how to let the man she loves know she’s struggling without him dragging it out of her and then kicking up a massive fight that ends in some incredibly ridiculous and unfairly good rage fuck.” 

He stared at her, stunned into silence. She glanced up at him through her lashes, eyes wary, and offered a crooked smile. 

The laugh started as a bubble deep in Cullen’s chest. He barely registered it was there before it rumbled out of his throat, a low chuckle that grew bit by bit. Tamsin blinked at his laugh, and a giggle tripped its way between her lips. She coughed, startled by her own laughter, and Cullen laughed all the harder at the sight of her comically-wide lilac eyes. She made a face at him, but couldn’t hold back her own smile, or the giggles that followed, this time without startling her into a coughing fit. Cullen’s chuckle grew into a laugh, and then into a full guffaw, and he didn't know whether he was laughing at what she’d said, or the absurdity of their situation, or just laughing _with_ her, but he couldn’t stop, and neither could she. They laughed until their sides hurt, until tears were running down her cheeks, until Tamsin toppled over onto her side and Cullen followed suit because the sight of the tiny, naked elf, all silver hair and black tattoos and bright red face from too much laughter was possibly the silliest thing he’d ever seen. 

They laughed until they couldn’t breathe. “Stop,” Tamsin panted between giggles, waving a hand at him. “Stop, I can’t not laugh when you're laughing.” For some reason, Cullen found that unfairly funny, and the punch Tamsin landed on his arm didn’t help any. He rolled onto his back, dropping his arms across his eyes so he wouldn’t have to see her face, and tried—really, he did—to regain control of his breathing. 

“Really, ser, get ahold of yourself,” Tamsin ordered from beside him, her voice full of mock anger, and the mental picture of her face sent Cullen into more gales of laughter. 

“Stop!” she demanded, breathless and giggling, rolling to straddle his chest, and pulled his arms away from his face. “Cullen Rutherford, I can’t _breathe_. Stop laughing right now!” 

But she was grinning, and knew as well as he did that telling someone not to laugh was about as useful as petting a cactus. Cullen clamped his lips together, trying gamely to oblige her, and she glared at him with all the solemnity she could muster for the two seconds before her own laughter won out. 

Tamsin collapsed on top of him, hiding her face in his shoulder, and muffled her giggles against his skin. Cullen wrapped his arms around her and, just because he could, nuzzled her neck with his stubbled cheeks. Tamsin shrieked, trying to pull away, but Cullen had locked his arms around her small frame, and proceeded to nuzzle the entire side of her neck and shoulder raw, until the Inquisitor was a quaking pile of breathless pants of laughter on top of him. 

“Please, Cullen,” she panted against his neck, hands flailing uselessly against his shoulders. “I’ll be red for a week.” 

“Fine,” he sighed with as much umbrage as he could muster, and loosened his grip. Tamsin sat up far enough to fix him with a look, but she was breathless and grinning so widely that the effect was entirely lost. Cullen grinned up at her. A soft chuckle bubbled up from his throat, and she mirrored with with a breathless giggle, but they were both boneless and sore from their fall into hysteria. 

Cullen pressed his hand to her neck, feeling the heat of her skin where he’d attacked her, and she made a playful face at him. “I’m sorry,” he said, not meaning it in the slightest—and then remembered the other thing he had to apologize for, and his face fell. 

Tamsin tilted her head, watching him curiously. He closed his eyes, fighting back the undercurrent of shame that sucked at his bones. They’d both been angry, spitting fire and venom, but for everything they’d both said—both _done_ —he had crossed a line he’d told himself he’d never cross. 

“Tamsin,” he murmured, feeling the tap of the consonant, slide of the vowels, whisper of the ‘s' between his teeth. That was how he wanted to say it, how he should have always said it: with love, gently, like the gift it was. 

“Cullen,” she replied, voice equally low and gentle. 

“I’m sorry.” He reached up, cradling her cheek in his hand. Tamsin tilted her head into his palm, looking at him curiously. She could hear the gravity in his voice. 

“For?”

“When I said— when I spat your name earlier.” he winced at the memory. Tamsin’s face cleared with understanding. “I never wanted… I didn’t mean…” He closed his eyes with a frustrated sigh. Tamsin’s fingers brushed across his brow, pushing back stray bits of hair, and she waited. 

“It may seem like a little thing,” he said slowly, placing each word into the space between them, “but I love your name, and I wish I had never said it cruelly. Your inner circle uses it easily, and you are called a lot of things by a lot of other people, but I always wanted your name, when I said it, to sound like…” here he floundered, casting around for words that didn’t come straight out of one of Varric’s novels, but the first thing that had occurred to him was the only thing that came. Finally, he gave up trying to make it sound less cliche. At least it was honest. 

“I always wanted your name to sound like I was saying ‘I love you’.” 

It sounded painfully cheesy to his ears. Cullen kept his eyes closed until the urge to cringe passed, and then looked up at her. 

Tamsin was gazing at him with an expression so full of adoration that it scared him.

“ _Cullen_ ,” she breathed. 

“Yes,” he said without thinking. “Like that.”

Tamsin bent down, her silver hair falling around her face to tickle his cheeks, and drew close until her lips barely brushed his. 

“Thank you,” she whispered. “If you want it, I forgive you. That…” She paused for a moment, took a breath, and he felt the rush of air across his lips. “That was the most wonderful thing anyone’s ever said to me.” She closed the distance between them, kissing him deeply and sweetly, and the space between their lips was filled with all the things she didn’t know how to say. 

He sat up, guiding her from his chest to his lap, and cradled her face in his hands. 

“Tamsin,” he murmured against her lips, and kissed her again. He swiped his tongue along the seam of her lips, gentle and inviting, and deepened the kiss for a moment when she opened to him, before pulling away. 

She opened her eyes slowly, lilac meeting gold, and he pressed their foreheads together. “Tamsin,” he murmured again, lips brushing her cheek, and then bent his head and pressed a kiss against her neck. She tilted her head back for him as he kissed again, and again, drawing a line down the side of her throat unmarred by his stubble. 

“Tamsin,” he whispered against the dip between her collarbones. She hummed in her throat, arching obligingly as he kissed her sternum, and then traced his way down between her breasts. He pressed her name into her skin with kisses, lingering on the scar that cut across her chest, and then laved his tongue across the tip of her breast. She exhaled on a sigh, arching her spine, leaning back to give him as much access as she could.

Cullen curved his hands around her sides, nudging gently. _Trust me_. And she did, letting him guide her backwards, lay her out across the bed. She gazed up at him with such _adoration_ in her eyes as he knelt between her legs and leaned over her, peppering kisses across her cheeks until she laughed—and then he swallowed her laughter, deep and inviting. Something bloomed inside him when she opened her mouth to him, nipped at his bottom lip, tasted him with sweet and lazy strokes of her tongue. He hated the sound she made when he pulled away, but he had a goal, and he was nothing if not a determined man.

He slowly made his way back down her body, calloused hands rasping against soft and scarred skin. He kissed her name across the underside of her breasts, tongued it down the lines of her abdomen, whispered it into her navel—which made her laugh and squirm—and pressed it, hot and heavy, into the nip and swell of the top of her pelvis. Her breath hitched as he ran his hands around her hips, under her thighs, down to the inside of her knee, and then lifted gently. 

She bent her legs obligingly, and he heard her breath catch in her throat as he laid down between her legs and hooked her knees over his shoulders. “Cullen,” she whispered. 

He looked up. “Yes?”

“I…” She hesitated, words failing her, and then something in her eyes seemed to settle. “I love you.”

He smiled up at her, and pressed a kiss to the top of her pelvic bone. “Tamsin,” he murmured into the skin. _I love you_. 

He kissed the inside of her thigh, then turned his head and nuzzled his nose into the soft silver curls at the apex of her thighs, simply because he knew it would make her laugh. And it did, but the laugh died in her throat when he ducked his head, exhaling softly across her center, and when he hooked his thumbs in her slick folds and spread them, when he kissed her clit with his tongue and whispered her name like a prayer, Tamsin swore softly and trembled under him. 

“Cullen,” she murmured, as if she couldn’t help but say his name. “Cull- _ah!”  
_ She tasted like sunshine and sin, and shivered under his mouth as he dragged his tongue the length of her cunt. He loved her—Maker, he loved her—and he also loved this, loved the way she trembled, how she reached for him with one hand and clutched at the sheets with the other, how her body was an open book to him. He swirled his tongue around her clit and she gasped, back arching, the way he knew so well. 

_Tamsin_ , he thought, mouth rather too busy to say it, but the intent was there. He dragged a knuckle through her folds, then slipped a finger inside her, and was rewarded with a needy gasp as she pressed into him. 

“Cullen,” she gasped, blunt fingernails scraping against his scalp. “Cullen, love, please…” 

He hummed obligingly, adding a second finger to the first. Tamsin was coming apart beneath him, he could hear it in her broken moans and feel it in her trembling, and she was sweet and perfect on his tongue; this was one of his favorite things in the entire world—and then she gasped, “Gods above, Cullen, _wait_.” 

He lifted his head with no small amount of reluctance, though he was somewhat placated by the shudder that ran through her when she caught sight of his mouth and chin, glistening with her need. “ _Fuck_ ,” she swore, low and needy, and then tangled her fingers in his hair and tugged gently. 

“Get up here,” she said, and though the words sounded like a command, her voice was barely short of begging. “Please, love.”

“I’m rather busy,” he noted, crooking the fingers inside her. Tamsin shuddered, squeezing her eyes shut for a moment.

“I noticed,” she replied, voice far too breathy for the dry tone she was reaching for, “but I want— _stop_ _that_.” Cullen reluctantly removed his mouth from her cunt. “I did just get back from closing no small number of rifts, my dear, and… I…” she fumbled for words, her polished tone crumbling as he ran his thumb across her clit. 

“You were saying?” he asked, enjoying this _far_ more than he should have. 

“Oh gods. You rotten, ruinous man,” Tamsin groaned. “For fuck’s sake, if I come more than three times tonight I’ll collapse, so move, because I want you _in me_.” 

Well. 

Cullen immediately detangled himself from her legs and crawled back up the length of the bed. Tamsin yanked him in for a desperate, hungry kiss, moaning at the taste of herself on his lips. 

“As soon as my leg heals,” she promised, the words almost lost between their mouths, “I am going to ride you until I can’t walk.”

“ _Fuck_ , Tamsin,” Cullen groaned, her words sending a bolt of lightning down his spine. As if he wasn’t already hard enough.

“Please,” she panted, reaching for him. Cullen lifted her, tucking a pillow under her hips. Tamsin hummed in anticipation, her good leg hooking around his waist and pulling him in. The length of him slid along her folds as he bent to kiss her, and they both moaned at the feel of it. Maker’s mercy, he’d underestimated the power her words had; every slick movement had fire racing up his spine. It would be too easy to come like this, her hands tangled in his hair as he rutted artlessly, hungrily against her—but Tamsin had asked, and he would deliver, Maker take him. 

As if she was reading his thoughts, Tamsin pulled his face to hers, kissed him hot and burning and desperate, before gasping against his lips, “Please, Cullen, I need you.”

“Always,” he whispered, slipped a guiding hand between their bodies, and pressed into her. He was careful—he was always careful—but she was desperate and dripping, and he sheathed himself entirely inside her as easily as coming home. 

“ _Oh,”_ Tamsin gasped, a sound of relief and need at the same time. “Oh, Cullen…” 

They paused for a moment, luxuriating in the perfect fit, the way their bodies hummed together as if made for each other—and then Tamsin rolled her hips, whispered to him, “I need you,” and he snapped.

It wasn’t the same as earlier. This wasn’t a bowstring, stretching past its breaking point; this was a whip that had been coiled and waiting, and was finally given the chance to do what it was made for. Tamsin was burning and pliant beneath him, reaching for him with desperate hands, head thrown back as she gasped broken pleasure and praise. 

Cullen had thought her a goddess, once, something so perfect and unearthly that the sight of her took his breath away. But now, the woman under him was perfect in her own broken ways, just as he was, and he knew the moans that tumbled from her lips as well as he knew the rumble of his own pleasure in his chest. “Tamsin,” he groaned, three words rolling through the two syllables as they filled in the air between them: _I love you._

_“Cullen!”_ She cried, reaching for him, echoing his words as she coiled and writhed beneath him—and then she came undone, wordless cries ripping from her throat as she clenched and trembled around him. Cullen could do nothing but follow, muffling his shout against her breast as the world narrowed to a single point—just them, in and around and with each other, and the pleasure rolling through them. 

They curled up around each other, exhausted and spent, bodies damp with sweat. Tamsin whimpered when Cullen slid out of her, and he could feel how her thighs tensed as she clamped them together. 

“What is it?” he murmured against her hair. 

“I hate feeling empty. Feels farther away from you,” she mumbled. Cullen hummed in understanding, and reached to nudge at the inside of her thighs with his fingertips. She parted them, more confused than anything else, and he curled his hand over her cunt, slipping one, then two fingers inside her. 

Her sigh of relief was profound. She immediately went boneless against him, and the hum of contentment vibrated against his skin. 

“D’you always feel that way?” he asked. 

“Not always,” she mumbled back, torso shifting. Cullen opened his eyes and looked down in time to intercept the kiss she’d intended for his chin. Tamsin giggled sleepily, and kissed the corner of his mouth before nestling down against him. “But most times.”

“See?” Cullen asked, casting around with the hand not currently tucked between her thighs. “Communication. Wonderful thing.”

“Shh,” she chastised, smacking his chest lightly. Cullen just smiled and, having found the rumpled edge of the blanket, drew it up over them both. She sighed again, the edges of her smile pressing against his chest. 

“Tamsin,” he murmured, and her smile widened. 

“I love you too,” she whispered, and though he’d said her name just to say it, Cullen’s heart warmed to know she’d heard his meaning. 

“Goodnight, my love,” Tamsin whispered. “Please don't leave before I wake up.” 

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” he murmured, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. This time, when the sleepiness came for him, he let it wash over him, sweeping him off to dreams where the world was almost as perfect as it was in real life, curled as he was around his lover, their lives set to rights and his hand tucked between her legs. Tomorrow, they would talk. Tomorrow was for promises, for figuring out how to keep the rift between them mended. Tomorrow would come, but tonight was drifting past on the whisper of their mingled breath, and the promise of their bodies tangled together until he couldn't tell where he stopped and she began.... and he was so very happy. 


End file.
